HOME  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
OF  MODERN  KNOWLEDGE 

No.  47 

Editors; 

HERBERT    FISHER,  M.A.,  F.B.A. 
PROF.  GILBERT  MURRAY,  LiTT.D., 

LL.D.,  F.B.A. 

PROF.  J.  ARTHUR    THOMSON,  M.A. 
PROF.  WILLIAM  T.  BREWSTER,  M.A. 


A  complete  classified  list  of  the  volumes  of  THE 
HOME  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY  already  published 
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THE 
COLONIAL   PERIOD 

BY 

CHARLES    McLEAN   ANDREWS 

PH.D.,    L.H.D. 

FARNAM    PROFESSOR    OF    AMERICAN    HISTORY    IN 
YALE    UNIVERSITY 

Author  of  ttTke  Historical  Development  of  Modern   Europe," 

**  Colonial  Self -Government  "  in  The  American 

Nation  series,  etc. 


NEW   YORK 
HENRY   HOLT  AND   COMPANY 

LONDON 
WILLIAMS    AND    NORGATE 


fi'l 


COPYRIGHT,  IQIZ, 

BY 
HENRY    HOLT   AND    COMPANV 


THE   UNIVERSITY   PRESS,   CAMBRIDGE,    U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

No  attempt  has  been  made  in  this  volume 
to  write  a  history  of  the  individual  colonies 
or  to  present  in  any  form  a  narrative  of  the 
events  of  colonial  history.  Many  familiar 
details  have  been  omitted  and  all  military 
undertakings  in  which  the  colonists  were 
engaged  have  been  passed  over  with  very 
little  comment. 

In  dealing  with  colonial  history  in  general, 
three  factors  stand  out  for  conspicuous 
treatment:  the  mother  country,  the  colonies, 
and  the  relations  between  them.  It  has 
been  customary  in  the  past,  when  writing 
of  the  colonial  period  of  American  history, 
to  minimize  the  importance  of  the  first  and 
last  factors,  and  to  lay  stress,  at  least  until 
the  period  of  the  Revolution  is  reached, 
upon  the  colonies,  their  institutions,  and 
life.  I  believe  that  the  balance  should  be 
restored,  and  that  if  we  are  to  understand 
the  colonies,  not  only  at  the  time  of  their 
revolt,  but  also  throughout  their  history 

603556 


vi  PREFACE 

from  the  beginning,  we  must  study  the 
policy  and  administration  at  home  and 
follow  continuously  the  efforts  which  were 
made,  on  the  side  of  Great  Britain  to  hold 
the  colonies  in  a  state  of  dependence  and 
on  the  side  of  the  colonies  to  obtain  a  more 
or  less  complete  control  of  their  own  affairs. 
Upon  this  belief  I  have  acted  in  planning 
the  arrangement  of  this  book.  Two  chapters 
are  devoted  to  England,  two  to  the  colonies, 
and  the  remainder  to  the  mutual  relation 
ship,  as  seen  in  the  settlements,  in  the  strug 
gle  for  independence  of  royal  prerogative 
and  acts  of  parliament,  and  in  the  move 
ment  looking  to  eventual  union  among  the 
colonies  themselves.  While  this  form  of 
treatment  eliminates  some  of  the  dramatic 
features  of  our  early  history,  it  is  the  only 
treatment  that  will  enable  us  to  understand 
the  events  of  the  period  from  1765  to  1775, 
events  which  lie  outside  the  scope  of  this 
work. 

My  further  purpose  has  been  to  deal  with 
the  colonies  in  large  measure  from  the 
vantage  ground  of  their  origin.  To  write  as 
one  standing  among  them  and  viewing  them 
at  close  range  is  to  crowd  the  picture  and  to 
destroy  the  perspective.  We  must  study 


PREFACE  vii 

the  colonies  from  some  point  outside  of 
themselves,  and  to  the  scholar  there  is  only 
one  point  of  observation,  that  of  the  mother 
country  from  which  they  came  and  to  whom 
they  were  legally  subject. 

Furthermore,  I  have  included  within  my 
survey  not  only  the  original  thirteen  colonies 
but  those  of  Canada  and  the  West  Indies 
also.  No  distinction  existed  between  them 
in  colonial  times  and  none  should  be  made 
now  by  the  writer  on  colonial  history.  To 
understand  the  events  taking  place  in  one 
group  we  must  examine  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent  corresponding  events  in  the  others. 
Only  by  viewing  the  colonies  as  a  whole  and 
comparatively  can  a  treatment  be  avoided 
which  is  merely  provincial  on  one  side  or 
topical  on  the  other. 

CHARLES  M.  ANDREWS. 

APRIL,  1912. 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I    COLONIAL    SETTLEMENT:    FIRST    PERIOD,  1607- 

1640.     .     .    ^    .* 9 

II     SECOND  PERIOD,  1655-1682 42 

III  POLITICAL  AND  SOCIAL  CHARACTERISTICS  ...  62 

IV  ECONOMIC  LIFE  AND  INFLUENCE 90 

V    THE  NAVIGATION  ACTS  AND  BRITISH  CONTROL.  107 

VI     IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH 

CENTURY    , 128 

VII     COLONIAL  STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL  .     .     .  155 

VIII     EVASION  OF  THE  ACTS  OF  PARLIAMENT     .     .     .  186 

IX    ATTEMPTS  AT  COLONIAL  UNION 20,5 

X    EVENTS  LEADING  TO  THE  STAMP-ACT  CONGRESS  229 

BIBLIOGRAPHY •     •     .  253 

INDEX  255 


THE  COLONIAL  PKKIOJ3  = 


CHAPTER  I 

COLONIAL  SETTLEMENT:  FIRST  PERIOD, 
1607-1640 

THE  United  States  of  America  did  not 
spring  full  grown  into  existence  nor  is  its 
history  lost  in  the  mystery  of  twilight  and 
darkness,  as  is  that  of  so  many  of  the  coun 
tries  of  Europe.  It  began  its  career  in  the 
full  light  of  day,  a  career  that  represented 
at  first  merely  the  activities,  on  a  new  ocean 
and  in  a  new  world,  of  the  great  maritime 
states  of  the  west,  Spain,  France,  Holland, 
and  England,  no  one  of  whose  people  ever 
saw  the  vision  of  a  great  and  independent 
republic  on  the  distant  horizon.  The  United 
States  began  as  a  series  of  tiny  plantations 
or  settlements,  many  of  them  centres  of 
trade  or  agriculture  founded  for  purposes 
of  profit.  The  small,  obscure,  and  often 
insignificant  groups  of  adventurers,  almost 
beyond  the  knowledge  of  the  people  of 
Europe,  were  established  in  the  mysterious 
west  after  many  losses  and  failures,  and 
were  kept  alive  in  the  earlier  years  at  great 


10  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 


anse-  6f  ^corporation  and  proprietor,  few 
of  whom  ever  received  any  adequate  return 
in  money  from  the  enterprise  they  had 
undertaken.  No  capitalists  of  modern  times 
ever  sank  greater  fortunes  in  more  profitless 
expeditions  than  did  the  merchants  and 
noblemen  of  England  to  whose  efforts  this 
gjeat  republic  in  large  part  owes  its  origin. 
/  To  England  alone,  of  all  the  civilized 
powers  that  bordered  on  the  Atlantic  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  do  we  trace  our 
descent  as  a  nation.  Neither  Portugal, 
Spain,  France,  nor  Holland  contributed 
directly  to  our  settlement,  playing  the  part 
rather  of  rivals  or  enemies  and  disputing 
with  England  the  right  to  use  the  territory 
of  the  New  World,  this  largely  unknown  and 
untried  world,  for  its  own  profit.  The  years 
of  our  settlement  were  a  romantic  period, 
a  time  of  energy  and  heroism,  of  bold  ven 
tures  at  sea  and  exploration  on  the  land, 
when  island  and  continental  colony  in  that 
wonderful  region  of  Florida  and  the  West 
Indies  were  planted  in  insecurity  and  like 
the  frontier  posts  of  western  America  were 
maintained  amid  the  constant  perils  of 
existence.  r  Along  the  coast  of  the  Atlantic, 
from  Hudson  Bay  on  the  north  to  the  Ama 
zon  on  the  south,  royalist  and  parliamenta- 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  11 

rian,  Anglican  and  Puritan,  feudal  lord  and 
democratic  radical,  sea  rover  and  buccaneer, 
sought  to  establish  settlements  that  would 
directly  enhance  their  own  fortunes  or 
furnish  them  with  homes,  and  indirectly 
redound  to  the  glory  of  God,  the  discom 
fiture  of  the  enemy,  and  the  good  of  the 
realm,  and  serve  as  strategic  centres  in  the 
conflict  for  supremacy  with  the  other  powers 
of  Europe.  In  the  south  England  disputed 
and  fought  with  Frenchman  and  Spaniard 
and  Dutchman,  in  the  centre  with  Dutchman 
and  Swede,  and  in  the  north,  from  Hudson 
Bay  and  Nova  Scotia  and  the  fishing  banks 
of  Newfoundland  to  the  great  lakes  of  the 
interior,  with  France,  her  greatest  and  most 
tenacious  rival.  Should  France,  whose 
strength  lay  in  her  military  forts  and  trading 
centres,  win  control  of  the  great  rivers,  the 
Hudson,  the  Ohio,  and  the  Mississippi,  she 
would  be  able  to  cut  off  the  English  expan 
sion  westward  and  so  check  and  eventu 
ally  destroy  altogether  the  British  advance 
in  America. 

Thus  at  the  beginning  the  American 
colonies  formed  but  a  part,  and  compara 
tively  speaking  but  a  small  part,  of  that 
great  western  frontier  of  the  European 
nations,  made  up  of  water,  islands,  and  con- 


12  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

tinent,  that  stretched  from  Hudson  Bay  to 
the  northern  coast  of  South  America.  No 
romance  of  later  days  in  our  great  West  can 
surpass  the  tales  of  adventure  and  suffering 
that  accompanied  the  voyages  for  discovery 
and  plunder  and  the  enterprises  for  commer 
cial  profit  that  were  promoted  during  the 
early  years  of  the  seventeenth  century.  It 
was  not  the  activities  of  the  Elizabethan 
seamen  that  founded  our  plantations  and 
colonies,  but  the  commercial  ambitions  of 
the  noblemen,  merchants,  and  capitalists 
during  the  reignsoFthe  Stuarts.  They  saw 
in  the  New  World  great  opportunities  for 
wealth,  such  as  earlier  companies  had  seen 
in  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Baltic.  With 
very  few  exceptions  the  British  colonies  in 
America  were  founded  for  commercial  pur 
poses,  rnd  even  those,  the  original  motive 
for  which  was  religions  or  philan  Ihropic , 
had  in  most  cases  a  commercial  aspect.  Tho 
years  from  1607  to  1640  were  a  time  of  superb 
endurance,  not  only  of  those  who  sought  new 
homes  for  the  sake  of  religion,  but  also  of 
the  less  heavenly  minded  adventurers  who 
aimed  at  booty  and  profit.  We  can  but 
admire  the  activities  of  those  days  and  the- 
lust  of  commercial  enthusiasm  and  religious 
zeal  that  provoked  men  to  journey  thou- 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  13 

sands  of  miles,  over  stormy  seas,  in  small 
and  badly  equipped  vessels,  into  a  largely 
unknown  world,  to  seek,  not  so  much  mines 
of  gold  and  silver,  though  that  allurement 
was  rarely  wanting,  but  the  almost  equally 
elusive  hope  of  wealth  from  tropical  trade. 

The  English  settlements  in  America  were  in 
number  more  than  thirty,  if  we  count  every 
form  of  foothold  which  Englishmen  obtained 
in  the  western  world.  They  stretched  from 
Hudson  Bay  to  British  Guiana,  including 
within  these  extreme  limits  such  portions  of 
Canada,  the  United  States,  and  the  West  Indies 
as  were  claimed  or  occupied  by  English  settlers. 

In  the  far  north  lay  the  forts  of  the  Hud 
son's  Bay  Company,  where  agents,  factors, 
and  hunters  shot  and  trapped  fur-bearing 
animals  and  sent  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
skins  to  England  every  year.  In  that  deso 
late  region  there  was  constant  quarrelling 
with  the  French  who  lived  along  the  St. 
Lawrence  and  claimed  important  parts  of 
the  territory.  Seizures  of  British  forts, 
particularly  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  led  to  serious  complications  with 
England  and  to  bitter  debates  which  were 
not  ended  even  with  the  signing  of  the 
treaty  of  Utrecht  in  1713,  the  company 
continuing  to  present  its  demands  for  com- 


14  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

pensation  on  into  the  second  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  South  and  east  of  the 
Hudson  Bay  territory  was  Labrador,  a  bar 
ren  tract  of  land  with  but  few  inhabitants, 
productive  of  a  few  beaver  and  other  skins, 
and  practically  unknown  to  the  colonists 
before  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
when  an  effort  was  made  to  incorporate  a 
company  to  trade  there.  A  few  years  later 
the  Moravians  began  their  self-sacrificing 
labors  in  the  territory. 

Across  from  Labrador  was  the  great 
island  of  Newfoundland,  occupied  and  gov 
erned  by  England,  but  never  strictly  speaking 
included  among  her  colonies,  the  only  real 
value  of  which  lay  in  the  fisheries  off  her 
coast.  This  debatable  ground,  a  poor  coun 
try  and  never  of  much  commercial  value  in 
itself,  was  a  rich  mine  of  wealth  because  of 
the  fish  that  were  caught  there,  and  a  very 
important  field  of  action  for  the  New  Eng- 
landers  who  brought  provisions  and  espe 
cially  rum,  which  the  English  authorities 
deemed  "very  pernicious  to  the  fishery/' 
and  by  promises  of  great  wages  enticed 
away  fishermen  from  the  banks  to  serve  on 
their  own  vessels.  Newfoundland,  too,  was 
a  perpetual  source  of  strife  between  Eng 
land  and  France  in  colonial  times  and  hrs 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  15 

remained  a  subject  of  dispute  until  very 
recent  years.  On  the  southern  side  of  the 
Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  were  three  regions,  also 
objects  of  continual  conflict  with  France, 
Cape  Breton,  St.  John  or  Prince  Edward 
Island,  and  Nova  Scotia.  There  England 
retained  a  precarious  footing  and  there  the 
tide  of  control  ebbed  and  flowed,  until,  in 
that  great  battle  on  the  Heights  of  Abraham 
in  1759,  England  won  the  victory  that  led  to 
the  overthrow  of  France  in  America  and  to  the 
founding  of  what  has  become  today  the  pow 
erful  self-governing  dominion  of  Canada. 

Passing  further  southward,  through  dense 
forests  by  way  of  rivers  and  chains  of  lakes, 
we  reach  that  territory  which  is  today  the 
United  States,  but  which  was  then  but 
sparsely  occupied  along  the  sea  coast  and 
back  by  way  of  the  rivers  into  the  interior. 
The_colonies  of  New  England  becameeyen- 
tually  four  m  ""number,  New  Hampshire, 
Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  Connec 
ticut,  the  original  settlements  of  Plymouth, 
Saybrook,  and  New  Haven  having  been 
absorbed  and  the  land  of  Maine  forming  a 
part  of  Massachusetts.  Over  the  border  of 
New  England  to  the  southwestward  was 
New  York,  seized  not  very  honorably  from 
the  Dutch  in  1064.  With  New  England  we 


16  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

meet  with  the  first  group  of  the  thirteen 
colonies  that  declared  their  independence 
of  the  mother  country  in  1776  and  with  the 
aid  of  France  won  the  victory  in  the  years 
from  1776  to  1783.  Below  New  York  in 
geographical  order  were  New  Jersey,  Penn 
sylvania,  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  and 
the  two  Carolinas,  and  still  farther  south  was 
Georgia,  the  last  of  the  thirteen  colonies, 
first  settled  in  1732.  Along  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  were  the  two  Floridas  which  England 
held  for  only  twenty  years,  1763-1783,  but 
long  enough  to  involve  her  in  a  very  compli 
cated  inquiry  regarding  the  land  claims  of 
the  Settlers.  The  Floridas  were  given  back 
to  Spain  in  1783  and  did  not  become  a  part 
of  the  United  States  until  1810  and  1819. 
Portions  of  the  middle  colonies,  Pennsylva 
nia,  New  Jersey,  and  Delaware  were  wrested 
from  the  Dutch,  who  had  already  despoiled 
the  Swedes  of  their  colony;  some  of  the 
southern  colonies  were  occupied  in  the  face 
of  stern  Spanish  opposition;  and  among 
the  lowlands  of  the  Carolinas,  Georgia,  and 
the  Floridas  conflicts  with  Spanish  settlers 
aroused  intense  feelings  of  hatred,  and  led  to 
many  attacks  and  counter-attacks,  at  Port 
Royal,  Savannah,  and  St.  Augustine,  in  which 
the  religious  and  race  differences  only  made 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  17 

more  bitter  the  struggle  for  leadership  and 
control  in  the  New  World. 

But  more  strenuous  even  than  the  en 
counters  with  French,  Spanish,  Dutch,  and 
Swedes  on  the  mainland  were  the  exciting 
scenes  of  warfare  that  were  enacted  in  the 
West  Indies.  The  island  colonies  of  England 
consisted  of  Bermuda,  lying  in  the  middle 
of  the  North  Atlantic  and  originally  a  part 
of  the  territory  of  the  Virginia  Company  of 
London,  the  Bahamas  off  the  southern 
coast  of  North  America  bending  away  to 
the  southeast,  and  the  West  Indies  proper 
running  in  a  curve  from  Jamaica  to  Bar- 
badoes.  First  and  largest  was  Jamaica, 
captured  from  Spain  in  1655  by  the  famous 
fleet  which  Cromwell  sent  out  in  1654  to 
weaken  the  Spanish  power  in  the  southwest. 
Beyond  were  the'  Caribbee  Islands,  divided 
into  the  Leeward  and  Windward  groups, 
some  ten  or  more  in  all,  and  finally  Barbadoes, 
one  of  the  earliest  to  be  settled  and  one  of  the 
most  important  that  England  possessed  in 
that  part  of  the  world.  Lastly,  England  placed 
her  foot  once  more  on  the  mainland  and  seiz 
ing  lands  which  the  Dutch  had  controlled  - 
Essequibo,  Demerara,  and  Berbice  —  founded 
her  colony  of  British  Guiana,  the  only  colony 
which  she  ever  possessed  in  South  America. 


18  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

Thus  the  long  chain  of  British  colonies 
and  possessions,  stretching  south  from  the 
frozen  waters  of  Hudson  Bay,  ended  in  that 
picturesque  group  of  rocky  islands  in  the 
tropical  West  Indies  and  in  that  solitary 
land  of  Guiana,  in  a  world  where  French, 
Spanish,  Danes,  and  Dutch  all  claimed  their 
share,  and  where  many  of  the  islands  passed 
back  and  forth  between  the  powers  as  one  or 
the  other  showed  itself  strong  enough  to 
seize  them.  In  the  years  before  1660  the 
hostility  of  Englishman  for  Spaniard  was  as 
great  as  ever  it  had  been  in  the  days  of 
Elizabeth  and  the  Armada,  but  the  struggle 
was  fought  on  the  Spanish  Main  and  not 
off  Cadiz  or  in  the  English  Channel.  In 
the  later  period  France  shared  with  Spain 
the  position  of  great  protagonist.  The  West 
Indies  during  our  colonial  era  were  the  scene 
of  some  of  the  most  varied  and  tempestuous 
struggles  that  we  meet  with  anywhere  in 
the  New  World.  Here  the  navies  fought 
many  famous  sea-battles;  here  islands  were 
wrested  at  heavy  cost  of  men  and  money, 
only  to  be  rendered  neutral  or  handed  back 
with  the  signing  of  new  treaties;  here  pi 
rates  and  privateers  found  favorable  oppor 
tunities  for  their  livelihood,  until  it  could  be 
said  that  it  was  more  dangerous  for  a  mer- 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  19 

chant  ship  to  sail  from  one  island  to  another 
than  it  was  to  sail  to  England,  and  that  at 
certain  periods  at  least  one  vessel  in  three 
was  liable  to  be  captured  and  plundered; 
and  here  during  the  War  of  Independence 
the  privateersmen  of  the  colonies  performed 
their  work  with  such  signal  success  that 
insurance  rates  in  England  approached  those 
of  a  foreign  war,  and  British  merchantmen 
were  allowed  to  carry  more  arms  and  ammu 
nition  than  the  orders  in  council  allowed. 

The  colonies  that  have  thus  been  mentioned 
in  brief  geographical  outline  were  not  founded 
at  the  same  time  or  under  the  same  circum 
stances.  They  were  founded  at  different 
times  and  under  a  great  variety  of  circum 
stances.  In  narrating  these  circumstances 
we  shall  follow,  not  only  the  history  of  Amer 
ica  during  the  seventeenth  century,  but  the 
history  of  England  also.  The  seventeenth 
century  was  the  great  era  of  colonization  in 
the  history  of  England,  just  as  it  was  the 
great  period  of  conflict  between  the  royal 
prerogative  represented  by  the  Stuart  kings 
and  the  demands  of  parliament  as  stated 
and  urged  by  the  more  progressive  and 
radical  members  of  that  body.  The  period 
of  colonization  begins  with  1607  and  closes 
with  1682.  Between  those  dates  all  but  one 


20  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

of  the  settlements  were  established  from 
which  grew  the  United  States  of  America. 
We  may  divide  the  period  into  two  parts: 
first  the  years  from  1607  to  1640;  second 
the  years  from  1655  to  1670,  with  the  single, 
and  in  a  measure  isolated,  settlement  of 
Pennsylvania,  1681-1682,  which  marked  the 
culmination  of  the  movement.  These  pe 
riods  represent  the  outworking  of  important 
commercial,  religious,  and  political  influences 
in  England,  and  each  of  the  settlements  in 
America  traces  its  origin  to  one  or  more  of 
these  great  phases  of  English  life  and  thought. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury  England  had  become  for  the  first  time 
an  independent  commercial  kingdom,  in 
which  trade  and  commerce  were  rapidly 
emerging  as  the  leading  interests  of  Eng 
land's  people.  Scores  of  companies  had 
already  been  formed  during  the  last  years 
of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  and  the  early  years 
of  the  reign  of  King  James  for  the  purpose 
of  carrying  on  trade  with  foreign  countries. 
According  to  the  accepted  policy  of  the  time, 
a  monopoly  of  trade  in  a  given  territory  was 
granted  to  each  of  these  companies,  con 
ceding  to  it  the  sole  right  to  traffic  in  the 
region  named  in  its  charter.  Greatest  of  all 
was  the  East  India  Company,  which  laid 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  21 

the  foundation  for  the  dependency  of  India, 
a  region  governed  until  1858  under  certain 
restrictions  by  this  private  corporation.  Of 
scarcely  less  importance  were  the  Levant 
Company,  trading  to  the  eastern  Mediter 
ranean,  the  Muscovy  Company  trading  to 
Russia,  and  others  which  added  little  by 
, little  to  England's  wealth  and  commercial 
importance.  When,  therefore,  the  atten 
tion  of  Englishmen  had  been  drown  to  the 
New  World  and  the  title  of  England  to  a 
portion  of  it  had  been  established  by  the 
discoveries  of  John  Cabot  and  others,  it  was 
inevitable  that  companies  should  be  formed 
to  take  up  land  and  to  trade  in  the  west. 

Many  of  those  who  were  already  members 
of  the  older  companies  became  interested  in 
western  traffic,  and  in  1606  the  first  effort 
was  made  to  obtain  a  charter  for  two  "Vir 
ginia"  companies,  one  the  southern  in  Lon 
don,  the  other  the  northern  in  Plymouth,  to 
hold  land  and  trade  in  America.  The  charter 
was  granted  by  James  I,  and  in  1607  the 
London  Company  sent  out  its  first  expedi 
tion  and  founded  the  first  English  settle 
ment  at  Jamestown  in  Virginia.  The 
second  or  Plymouth  Company  failed  in  its 
colonizing  venture  at  Sagadahoc  and  con 
fined  itself  to  trading  voyages,  until  in  1620 


22  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

it  was  remodelled  as  the  New  England  Coun 
cil  or  Corporation  of  New  England.  In  1609 
the  island  of  Bermuda  was  discovered  and  was 
originally  included  within  the  second  grant  to 
the  London  Company,  but  later  it  separated 
and  a  subordinate  company  was  formed  to 
settle  and  govern  it.  Each  of  the  companies 
remained  in  England,  there  held  its  meetings, 
and  from  there  controlled  its  colony. 

At  first  the  settlements  both  at  Jamestown 
and  in  Bermuda  were  but  plantations,  pos 
sessing  no  self-governing  powers  of  their  own. 
They  were  governed  from  England,  and  in 
the  case  of  Virginia  twelve  years  elapsed 
before  that  plantation  wTas  allowed  to  have 
a  popular  assembly  elected  by  the  people 
who  lived  there.  During  the  earlier  years 
Virginia  was  little  more  than  a  penal  and 
military  settlement  made  up  of  men  who  led  ^ 
an  almost  hopeless  existence  and  were  often 
rendered  desperate  by  famine  and  disease^  **' 
Saved  from  extinction  by  the  leadership  of 
John  Smith,  who  taught  the  lesson  that  those 
who  would  not  work  should  not  eat,  and  by 
a  providential  arrival  of  supplies,  the  plan 
tation  weathered  its  first  crisis,  only  to  enter 
under  the  guidance  of  Dale  a  period  of  mili 
tary  rule,  when  men  went  to  work  almost . 
with  lockstep,  and  dug  and  harvested  under 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  23 

military  orders  from  overseers.  Two  events 
laid  the  permanent  foundations  for  the 
colony:  the  granting  of  self-government  in 
1619,  and  the  discovery  of  tobacco  as  a  staple 
article  of  commerce,  which  the  company 
finally  accepted,  after  many  attempts  to 
introduce  a  greater  variety  of  industries, 
as  the  sole  commodity  that  would  return  a 
profit.  During  the  last  years  of  its  existence 
the  London  Company,  though  hopelessly 
divided  into  factions  and  badly  mismanaged, 
sought  to  become  a  tobacco  company  under 
contract  with  the  crown  to  supply  England 
with  the  entire  output  of  the  colony.  But  the 
control  of  the  company  lasted  less  than  twenty 
years  altogether,  for  in  1624,  after  a  careful  in 
quiry  by  a  royal  commission,  the  charter  was 
annulled  because  of  maladministration  by  the 
Sandys  party  during  the  preceding  four  years. 
Virginia  became  a  royal  colony,  and  so  re 
mained  throughout  the  colonial  period. 

While  the  Virginia  colony  was  becoming 
established  as  a  successful  commercial  ven 
ture  through  the  corporate  activities  of  the 
noblemen,  merchants,  and  liveries  of  Eng 
land,  a  new  influence  was  making  itself 
felt,  in  part  religious  and  in  part  political. 
Already  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  time  there  had 
arisen  radical  religious  thinkers  and  teachers 


24  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

in  England,  inevitable  out-croppings  of  the 
Reformation,  who  were  opposed  not  only  to 
the  great  Roman  church  of  the  west  but 
also  to  the  Anglican  organization  that  had 
been  established  by  Elizabeth.  The  more 
extreme  of  these  Protestants  were  known  as 
Separatists,  because  they  wished  to  separate 
entirely  from  the  Church  of  England.  This 
body  of  noble-minded  men  and  women, 
persecuted  during  the  last  years  of  Eliza 
beth's  reign,  first  fled  to  Holland,  where 
they  lived  for  many  years,  first  in  Amsterdam 
and  then  in  Leyden,  and  finally  came  to 
America  in  1620.  Poor  in  pocket  as  they 
were  rich  in  purpose,  they  sought  aid  to 
enable  them  to  cross  the  ocean  and  support 
themselves  in  their  new  home,  and  obtained 
from  a  body  of  seventy  adventurers  in  Eng 
land,  organized  as  an  unincorporated  joint- 
stock  company,  the  means  wherewith  to 
carry  out  their  plan.  After  a  stormy  voyage 
in  the  Mayflower  they  landed  on  the  coast 
of  New  England,  and  there  amid  infinite 
hardships  founded  a  colony,  the  colony  of 
the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth.  For  seven  years 
they  labored  to  make  their  undertaking 
profitable,  but  as  a  commercial  enterprise 
it  proved  a  failure,  and  when  the  seven  years 
mentioned  in  the  agreement  had  expired 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  25 

the  joint  stock  was  dissolved  and  the  Ply 
mouth  settlers  assumed  the  obligations  of 
the  company  and  thenceforth  conducted 
their  affairs  alone.  From  the  first  their 
government  was  fundamentally  different  from 
that  of  the  plantation  in  Virginia.  They 
governed  themselves  without  regard  to  king 
or  company,  and  thus  their  settlement  be 
came  the  freest  of  the  colonies  planted  in 
America  at  this  early  date.  Although  they 
had  a  land  patent  from  the  New  England 
Council,  they  had  no  charter  of  incorporation 
from  the  crown,  and  so  their  right  to  exist 
as  a  government  rested  on  no  legal  title. 
For  seventy  years  they  continued  as  a  colony, 
legally  weak  but  morally  strong,  until  they 
were  absorbed  in  the  neighboring  common 
wealth  of  Massachusetts,  and  the  land  which 
they  occupied  is  today  a  part  of  that  state. 
Though  swallowed  up  by  the  larger  commu 
nity,  the  colony  of  the  Pilgrims  has  exercised 
a  widespread  influence  upon  the  political  and 
religious  life  of  the  American  people. 

While  the  Pilgrims  were  laying  the  foun 
dation  stones  of  their  colony,  a  great  struggle 
was  beginning  in  England,  and  an  era  of 
political  and  religious  conflict  was  ushered  in 
which  eventually  culminated  in  the  great 
Civil  War.  During  this  period  of  national 


26  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

unrest  a  famous  migration  took  place  to 
America,  lasting  for  more  than  ten  years,  of 
many  in  England  who  wished  to  govern  and 
to  worship  in  their  own  way.  They  disliked 
the  ecclesiastical  and  monarchical  restraints 
in  England  and  their  eyes  were  turned  to 
the  New  World  as  a  refuge  where  they  could 
live  free  from  the  traditions  of  the  past. 
These  Puritans,  as  they  are  generally  called, 
organized  themselves  as  a  company  and 
obtained  a  charter  from  the  king,  Charles  I. 
At  first  remaining  for  a  year  in  England, 
1629-1630,  they  sent  over  settlers,  much  as 
the  Virginia  Company  had  done,  who  es 
tablished  a  plantation  at  Salem  in  New 
England.  But  this  Puritan  body,  the  Mas 
sachusetts  Bay  Company,  had  no  intention 
of  following  the  example  of  the  Virginia  and 
Bermuda  companies.  In  1630  a  majority 
of  its  officers  with  the  charter  sailed  for  Amer 
ica  and  settled  at  Boston. 

By  this  momentous  action  the  Puritans 
did  more  than  found  a  colony,  they  founded 
an  entirely  new  type  of  colony,  since  for  the 
first  time  an  incorporated  company  had 
planted  itself  on  American  soil.  The  cor 
poration  became  a  colony,  and  the  colony 
rapidly  developed  into  a  commonwealth, 
sending  out  offshoots  to  the  north,  south,  and 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1G07-1640  27 

west,  that  in  turn  became  colonies,  govern 
ing  themselves  in  much  the  same  way  as 
did  Massachusetts,  in  two  cases,  Connecti 
cut  and  Rhode  Island,  becoming  before 
many  years  colonies  regularly  incorporated 
by  the  crown.  The  colony  of  Massachusetts 
rose  to  be  the  most  powerful  government  in 
the  north,  growing  rapidly  in  size,  exhibiting 
intolerance  toward  all  who  differed  with  it 
in  religious  practice  or  political  views,  and 
claiming,  by  the  most  favorable  interpre 
tations  of  the  letter  of  its  charter,  territory 
to  the  northward  that  would  have  included 
within  its  boundaries  all  the  settlements  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Piscataqua  (New  Hamp 
shire).  Feeling  secure  in  the  distance  which 
separated  their  charter  from  the  authorities 
at  home  and  encouraged  by  the  successes 
of  the  parliamentarians  during  the  period 
before  1660,  the  men  of  Massachusetts 
Assumed  an  attitude  of  independence,  and 
were  inclined  to  ignore  all  royal  commands, 
particularly  such  as  concerned  the  trade  of 
the  colony.  So  disregardful  did  they  appear 
to  be  of  the  fact  that  they  formed  a  colony 
and  not  a  sovereign  commonwealth,  that  in 
1684  they  were  disciplined  by  the  home 
government,  and  lost  some  of  the  privileges 
of  complete  self-control.  By  a  new  charter 


28  THE   COLONIAL  PERIOD 

issued  in  1691  Massachusetts,  instead  of 
electing  its  own  governor,  was  required  to 
accept  a  governor  appointed  by  the  king. 

Of  the  two  offshoots  from  Massachusetts 
that  eventually  received  royal  charters, 
Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island,  the  latter 
was  founded  by  Roger  Williams,  the  great 
exponent  of  soul  liberty  and  the  first  man 
to  put  into  practice  the  principles  of  religious 
toleration.  The  other,  Connecticut,  was 
also  a  more  liberal  colony,  and  both  owed 
their  origin  to  a  dislike  of  the  narrow  relig 
ious  and  political  policy  of  Massachusetts. 
At  first  neither  of  these  colonies  had  titles 
to  the  soil  which  they  occupied  and  were 
technically  squatters  on  royal  domain,  but 
in  1662  and  1663,  through  clever  diplomacy, 
they  succeeded  in  obtaining  from  Charles 
II  the  desired  recognition  which  made  them 
legally  secure.  Forms  of  government  in 
both  colonies  were  democratic,  and  repre 
sented  more  nearly  the  principles  which 
underlie  the  government  of  the  United  States 
today  than  any  other  of  the  British  colonies. 

Thus  we  have  five  colonies  founded  under 
incorporated  companies,  Bermuda,  Virginia, 
Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and  Rhode  Is 
land.  In  the  first  two  instances  the  company 
remained  in  England,  in  the  others  the  com- 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  29 

pany  and  the  colony,  being  identical,  were 
in  America.  Of  the  five,  two  only  were 
destined  to  survive.  The  Virginia  and  Ber 
muda  companies  lost  their  charters  entirely 
and  ceased  to  exist,  and  the  plantations 
which  they  founded  became  royal  colonies; 
Massachusetts  suffered  a  serious  modifi 
cation  of  her  charter  which  made  her  a  royal 
colony,  but  less  royal  than  the  others,  inas 
much  as  the  colony  retained  the  right  to 
elect  its  council  and  to  choose  many  of  its 
own  officials;  but  Connecticut  and  Rhode 
Island  preserved  their  charters  intact 
through  the  whole  colonial  period,  and  were 
so  well  content  with  the  governments  under 
which  they  lived  that  they  adhered  to  their 
fundamental  law  well  on  into  the  nine 
teenth  century,  Connecticut  to  1818  and 
Rhode  Island  to  1845.  The  democratic 
principles  of  government,  which  underlay 
the  life  of  these  two  states,  were  so  entirely 
in  accord  with  the  aims  and  aspirations  of 
the  people  of  that  day,  that  neither  Connec 
ticut  nor  Rhode  Island  needed  to  alter  its 
instrument  of  government  until  long  after 
the  other  states,  having  thrown  off  their 
allegiance  to  Great  Britain,  set  about  draft 
ing,  in  the  years  from  1776  to  1780,  special 
constitutions  of  their  own. 


30  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

Settlement  by  incorporated  companies 
was  but  the  earliest  form  of  promoting  the 
founding  of  colonies  in  America.  Side  by 
side  with  it  went  the  activities  of  single 
proprietors  who,  like  the  feudal  seigneurs 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  became,  or  aimed  to 
become,  the  lords  of  great  colonial  territories 
to  which  they  were  to  stand  as  to  any  fief  or 
estate  of  land.  During  this  early  period 
many  English  and  Scottish  lords  and  baron 
ets  became  actively  interested  in  projects 
of  colonization  in  the  west.  Chief  among 
them  were  the  Earl  of  Lennox,  Lord  Mal- 
travers,  Earl  of  Arundel  and  Surrey  and 
his  son  the  third  earl,  the  Earl  of  Carlisle, 
Sir  William  Alexander,  first  Earl  of  Stirling 
and  his  son,  Sir  James  Hamilton  and  his 
son,  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  and  Sir  George 
Calvert.  Though  a  few  of  the  men  of  this 
class  were  royal  favorites  and  courtiers  and 
had  no  higher  aim  than  to  restore  fortunes 
shattered  by  extravagance,  others  were  men 
of  worth  and  position,  who  were  legitimately 
interested  in  colonization  as  a  source  of 
honor  to  the  country  and  of  profit  to  them 
selves.  Many  were  connected  with  the  East 
India  Company,  the  West  India  and  Amazon 
companies,  and  were  concerned  in  the  fish 
eries  and  the  opening  of  Canada  to  English 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  31 

trade.  All  were  leading  and  active  members 
of  the  reorganized  North  Virginia  Company, 
which  became  the  New  England  Council 
in  1620;  and  all,  except  Calvert,  received 
grants  of  land  in  New  England  on  the 
feudal  tenure  of  holding  of  the  crown  by  the 
sword.  Though  many  of  them  were  pre 
vented  by  circumstances,  financial  or  other 
wise,  from  a  successful  prosecution  of  their 
aims,  and  so  have  been  in  large  measure 
lost  sight  of  as  participators  in  the  colonizing 
movement,  yet  even  those  who  failed  often 
labored  zealously,  sacrificing  time  and  for 
tune  to  promote  settlement  and  trade,  and 
they  deserve  a  fuller  recognition  than  has  , 
been  accorded  them  by  writers  on  British 
colonization  in  America. 

Lennox  died  in  1624  and  was  succeeded 
by  his  son,  brother-in-law  of  the  younger 
Maltravers.  The  younger  Lennox  accom 
plished  nothing  on  his  own  account,  but  how 
far  he  may  have  cooperated  with  Maltravers 
and  the  Calverts,  with  whom  he  was  on  inti 
mate  terms,  there  is  no  means  of  knowing. 
Hamilton  also  died  early,  leaving  a  claim  to 
the  Narragansett  territory  which  gave  the 
Connecticut  colony  some  trouble  when  re 
vived  by  his  daughter  and  her  husband  after 
the  Restoration.  Hamilton's  fellow  Scot, 


32  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

Sir  William  Alexander,  afterward  the  Earl 
of  Stirling,  the  most  distinguished  and  ver 
satile  of  them  all,  with  a  title  to  half  of 
Maine,  eastern  Canada,  and  Long  Island, 
from  1622  to  1630  sent  many  ship  loads  of 
colonists  to  New  Scotland  or  Nova  Scotia, 
commissioned  his  son  as  governor  of  a  plan 
tation  at  Port  Royal,  issued  an  "Encourage 
ment  to  Colonists,"  and  so  firmly  established 
his  claim  to  Long  Island  that  the  first  settlers 
there  obtained  from  his  agent  the  titles  to 
their  lands.  He  labored  twenty  years  in  the 
colonial  cause,  but  left  no  permanent  colony 
behind.  His  titles  in  Maine  and  Nova 
Scotia  served  in  the  eighteenth  century  to 
complicate  claims  to  those  territories  that 
were  already  sufficiently  confused. 

More  important,  though  not  in  the  end 
more  successful  as  far  as  posterity  was  con 
cerned,  were  the  efforts  of  the  elder  Mal- 
travers,  Earl  of  Arundel  and  Surrey,  to 
found  a  feudal  principality  south  of  Vir 
ginia.  In  that  region,  under  a  patent  granted 
to  Sir  Robert  Heath  in  1629,  a  settlement  of 
Huguenots  had  already  been  attempted  in 
1630,  after  the  fall  of  Rochelle,  the  last  Prot 
estant  refuge  in  France.  Directed  by  the 
Huguenot  captain,  Sauce,  and  William  Bos- 
well,  secretary  to  tlie  Earl  of  Carlisle,  and 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  33 

carried  out  by  Samuel  Vassall,  acting  for 
Sir  Robert  Heath,  voyages  had  been  under 
taken  and  colonists  provided,  but  in  the  end 
the  venture  had  proved  a  failure.  Purchas 
ing  the  Heath  patent  in  1632,  Maltravers 
began  to  send  settlers  into  the  territory,  and 
in  1633  commissioned  one  Captain  Hawley 
to  plant  the  southern  part,  constituting  him 
lieutenant  governor  of  "Carolana"  with  ten 
thousand  acres  of  land.  Similarly  he  com 
missioned  another  sea-captain,  Hartwell,  to 
plant  the  northern  part.  In  1638  his  son 
received  from  Governor  Harvey  of  Virginia, 
acting  under  instructions  from  the  king, 
whose  earl-marshal  the  younger  Maltravers 
was,  a  deed  to  a  tract  of  land  to  be  known  as 
Norfolk  county  from  the  ancestral,  but  at 
this  time  forfeited,  title  of  Norfolk.  At 
considerable  expense  Maltravers  endeavored 
to  settle  his  territory,  planning  to  make  it  a 
base  for  further  colonization  southward  and 
the  establishment  of  plantations  and  trading 
centres.  He  continued  his  preparations  and 
was  gathering  colonists,  military  and  other, 
when  the  campaign  against  the  Scots  in 
1639,  in  which  he  was  a  general,  drew  him  and 
his  train  of  followers  away  from  colonial 
schemes,  leaving  no  trace  behind,  save  the 
name  of  a  county  in  Virginia. 


34  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

More  fruitful  of  result  were  the  efforts  of 
the  Earl  of  Carlisle,  favorite  and  spend 
thrift,  who  saw  in  the  West  Indies  a  profit 
able  domain  from  which  to  replenish  an 
impoverished  exchequer.  In  this  world  of 
contradictory  grants  and  conflicting  claims, 
where  the  French  on  one  side  and  Sir  Thomas 
Warner  on  the  other  had  already  established 
themselves  at  St.  Christopher  (1623),  Sir 
William  Courteen,  one  of  the  most  prominent 
capitalists  of  his  time,  had  endeavored  to 
plant  Barbadoes  (1624),  and  Captain  Hilton 
had  found  a  footing  on  the  island  of  Nevis 
(1628),  the  Earl  of  Carlisle  succeeded  after 
much  trouble  in  making  good  his  title,  ob 
tained  in  1627,  and  became  lord  palatine  of 
Barbadoes  and  adjoining  islands.  But  among 
these  scattered  and  largely  unknown  lands, 
in  the  face  of  frequent  disputes  and  rival 
governors,  proprietary  control  was  difficult 
to  maintain.  Carlisle,  financially  embar 
rassed,  died  in  1636,  handing  on  his  title  to 
his  son,  who  in  1647  leased  the  profits  of  the 
island  to  that  ardent  promoter  of  England's 
trade  and  colonization,  Lord  Willoughby  of 
Parham,  who  became  governor  in  1650. 
Already  had  constitutional  government  been 
introduced  into  Barbadoes,  and  the  island 
early  began  to  prosper  in  the  hands  of  a 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  35 

sturdy  and  growing  population,  more  than 
6,000  in  number,  of  strong  royalist  proclivi 
ties.  With  Virginia,  Maryland,  and  Bermuda 
Barbadoes  fell  under  the  suspicion  of  the  com 
monwealth  in  England,  and  after  a  spirited 
resistance  was  compelled  to  capitulate. 

But  this  feudal  domain  proved  to  be  no 
palatinate,  as  was  designed  by  Carlisle's 
charter  of  1627;  it  had  become  already  a 
self  governing  colony,  controlled  by  moderate 
men,  who  centred  their  efforts  on  the  increase 
of  the  trade  and  prosperity  of  the  island. 
When  in  1660  monarchy  was  restored  in 
England,  no  colony  in  America  stood  higher 
in  England's  eyes  than  this  far  off  island, 
"the  granary  of  all  the  Charybbees  Isles," 
and  its  influence  upon  the  colonies  of  the 
continent  was  marked  in  many  ways.  Voy 
ages  to  and  from  England  were  generally 
made  by  way  of  Barbadoes,  and  intercourse 
with  the  colony  and  emigration  from  it  to 
the  American  continent  were  fairly  common 
occurrences.  As  early  life  in  the  West 
Indies  was  essentially  unstable,  in  a  world 
where  men  ventured  from  island  to  island 
in  search  of  wealth  and  plunder,  so  settlers 
from  Barbadoes  engaged  in  frequent  wan 
derings,  which  led  to  prolonged  disputes  and 
diplomatic  negotiations  with  France  and 


36  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

Denmark,  that  were  not  settled  till  nearly 
the  end  of  the  colonial  period.  England 
lost  in  a  measure,  but  gained  in  greater 
measure,  until  the  outcome  of  royal  and 
proprietary  effort  was  the  winning  of  a 
major  control  by  England  of  those  tropical 
islands  that  her  merchants  valued  so  highly. 
Until  after  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  Englishmen  deemed  their  West 
Indian  colonies  the  most  valuable  part  of 
their  western  possessions. 

More  noteworthy  even  than  the  disputes 
in  the  West  Indies  were  the  efforts  made  by 
Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  one  of  the  most 
picturesque  characters  in  our  early  colonial 
history,  to  erect  the  lands  stretching  from 
Cape  Cod  northward  into  a  feudal  propri 
etorship.  The  duel  between  Gorges  and  the 
Puritans  was  a  battle  royal,  though  fought 
by  diplomacy  and  not  by  arms.  Gorges, 
like  the  others,  was  an  aristocrat,  a  loyal 
upholder  of  the  Stuarts,  and  a  believer  in  the 
royal  prerogative.  He  aspired  to  create  in 
New  England  a  principality  of  which  he 
should  be  the  sole  and  absolute  proprietor, 
with  sub-fiefs  and  private  plantations,  all 
under  a  common  governor  general  of  New 
England.  He  obtained  from  the  New  England 
Council  for  himself  and  others  the  necessary 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  37 

grants  of  land,  but  found  himself  opposed 
by  the  Puritans,  who  had  as  their  great 
political  friend  the  powerful  Earl  of  War 
wick,  also  a  member  of  the  council.  War 
wick  had  been  a  member  of  the  Virginia, 
Bermuda,  and  Amazon  companies,  and  from 
his  vantage  point  of  the  New  England  Coun 
cil  did  all  that  he  could  to  further  Puritan 
settlement,  particularly  ftiter  1626,  when 
he  joined  the  parliamentary  leaders  in  oppo 
sition  to  the  king,  and  until  June,  1632,  when 
he  ceased  to  attend  the  meetings  of  the  coun 
cil.  Taking  advantage  of  Gorges'  absence 
during  the  war  with  France  (1625-1629), 
Warwick  aided  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Com 
pany  to  obtain  its  charter,  whereby  a  Puri 
tan  wedge  was  driven  through  the  very  heart 
of  Gorges'  province.  He  endeavored  to 
strengthen  the  position  of  the  Pilgrims  at 
Plymouth  and  did  secure  for  them  titles  to 
their  land,  but  he  failed  in  his  effort  to  pro 
cure  in  their  behalf  the  desired  charter  of 
government  from  the  crown. 

Warwick's  efforts  to  establish  the  Puri 
tans  in  New  England  were  but  part  of  a 
larger  scheme  of  Puritan  colonization,  which 
was  promoted  by  the  Puritan  leaders  in 
England  in  the  decade  from  1630  to  1640. 
Fearful  of  the  results  of  the  personal  rule  of 


38  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

Charles  I  and  desiring  to  secure  an  additional 
outpost  of  refuge  should  the  parliamentary 
cause  be  lost  in  England,  Warwick,  with 
Lord  Say  and  Sele,  Lord  Brooke,  Oliver 
St.  John,  John  Pym  and  others,  organized 
a  company  in  1630  for  the  settlement  of 
Providence  Island  off  the  coast  of  Nicaragua, 
which  they  maintained  against  Spanish 
opposition  for  *eteven  years.  When  in  the 
years  1634  and  1635  the  royal  persecution 
reached  its  height  and  the  Puritan  leaders, 
under  constant  suspicion  from  the  crown,  saw 
no  hope  for  themselves  at  home,  they  turned 
their  attention  to  New  England,  and,  dis 
liking  the  narrowness  of  the  Massachusetts 
system,  established  a  fortified  post  against 
the  Stuarts,  "a  refuge  for  those  oppressed 
for  righteousness  sake,"  at  Say  brook,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Connecticut  river.  This  post 
they  retained  until  the  victories  of  the  Long 
Parliament  relieved  them  of  danger,  when 
needing  it  no  longer  they  sold  the  land  and  its 
patent  in  1644  to  the  settlers  of  Connecticut. 
Thus  the  plans  of  the  Puritans  were  as 
elaborate  as  those  of  the  royalists,  and  their 
control  of  New  England  seemed  assured. 
'  Gorges,  claiming  that  the  Massachusetts 
I  charter  had  been  "  surrreptitiously  "  obtained 
and  seeing  in  Puritan  success  the  failure  of 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  39 

his  schemes,  fought  the  Massachusetts  Bay 
Company  in  every  way  that  he  could,  and 
his  efforts  left  a  trail  of  bitter  remembrance 
in  New  England  that  lasted  through  the 
century.  He  was  aided  by  Archbishop 
Laud,  who  wanted  the  Anglican  Church 
established  in  New  England,  by  the  king 
and  Privy  Council,  who  by  proclamations 
and  orders  attempted  to  prevent  the  growth 
of  the  Puritan  colony,  and  by  many  allies, 
among  whom  was  his  friend  Mason,  also  a 
member  of  the  New  England  Council,  who 
had  titles  to  the  territory.  But  Massachu 
setts  was  too  strongly  intrenched.  Charles  I 
was  too  heavily  involved  in  financial  trou 
bles  at  home,  and  Gorges  himself  had  in 
sufficient  resources  and  was  attended  by 
ill  luck  in  losing  those  that  he  had.  By  1639 
all  his  efforts  had  failed,  his  great  proprie 
tary  province  had  shrunk  to  a  portion  of  the 
territory  of  Maine,  and  during  the  Civil 
Wars  at  home  Massachusetts  rooted  her 
self  firmly  as  the  dominant  power  in  New 
England.  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  the 
civil  struggle  in  England  should  have  inter 
fered  so  effectually  to  prevent  the  consum 
mation  of  aristocratic  and  feudal  schemes 
that  might  have  succeeded  had  they  fallen 
on  happier  and  less  troubled  times.  Had 


40  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

the  Stuarts  been  as  absolute,  powerful,  and 
rich  as  the  Tudors,  the  great  palace  planned 
by  Inigo  Jones  might  have  had  a  larger 
result  than  the  present  Banqueting  Hall  in 
Whitehall,  and  the  Puritans  might  not  have 
been  able  to  identify  themselves,  their  ideas, 
and  their  government  so  completely  with 
New  England. 

Of  all  the  aristocratic  endeavors  of  this 
eventful  decade  the  most  successful  was  the 
\  attempt  of  Sir  George  Calvert  and  his  son 
Cecilius  to  found  a  palatinate  in  America. 
Sir  George  Calvert,  Lord  Baltimore,  was 
secretary  of  state  under  James  I  and  a  co- 
operator  in  many  commercial  ventures, 
particularly  in  the  east.  He  stands  as  a 
type  of  the  earnest,  courageous  promoter 
of  his  day.  Eager  to  advance  colonization 
that  he  might  benefit  his  Roman  Catholic 
co-religionists  and  at  the  same  time  find 
profitable  investment  for  his  patrimony,  he 
obtained  a  charter  from  the  king  for  a  por 
tion  of  Newfoundland,  where  a  Welsh  pio 
neer,  William  Vaughan,  had  already  attempted 
a  settlement  called  Cambriol  on  the  south 
coast.  Repelled  by  the  ^coldness  of  the 
climate  and  the  barrenness  of  the  land  there, 
he  sought  another  charter  for  land  within 
the  territory  north  of  Virginia,  to  which  he 


FIRST  PERIOD,   1607-1640  41 

gave  the  name  Maryland.  Dying  before  the 
charter  passed  the  seals,  he  handed  on  his 
plans  to  his  son,  who  unable  to  go  himself 
in  person  sent  his  brothers,  who  in  1634 
made  the  first  settlement  at  St.  Mary's  on 
Chesapeake  Bay.  No  settlement  up  to  this 
time  so  fully  represented  the  spirit  and  hopes 
of  a  single  man  as  did  the  colony  of  Mary 
land  represent  those  of  Lord  Baltimore. 
Though  a  Roman  Catholic  himself  and  desir 
ing  to  find  a  home  for  the  persecuted  fol 
lowers  of  his  faith,  he  planned  to  throw  open 
his  colony  to  Protestants,  and  his  son  acting 
upon  his  wishes,  with  the  success  of  the 
colony  in  mind  and  visions  of  commercial 
and  proprietary  profits  to  come,  issued 
broad-minded  instructions  for  a  liberal  treat 
ment  of  all  who  desired  to  join  in  the  venture. 
Though  in  the  civil  struggle  that  took  place 
in  the  colony  afterward  we  see  one  result  of 
this  mingling  of  Anglicans,  Puritans,  and 
Roman  Catholics,  nevertheless  Maryland 
became  in  time  one  of  the  noteworthy  seats 
of  a  vigorous  colonial  life  in  America. 

Thus  by  1640  Virginia  and  Bermuda,  Ply 
mouth,  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  Rhode 
Island,  Barbadoes,  and  Maryland  were  well 
established,  through  the  efforts  either  of  in 
corporated  companies  or  of  single  proprietors. 


CHAPTER  II 

SECOND   PERIOD,  1655-1682 

WITH  the  year  1640  we  reach  the  end  of 
the  first  period  of  colonization.  It  has  been 
a  period  characterized  by  a  half  uncon 
scious  struggle  for  the  control  of  settlement  by 
the  conservative  and  radical  forces  in  Eng 
land,  working  by  the  same  methods  of 
royal  grant  and  incorporation,  and  promoting 
their  undertakings  by  means  of  chartered 
ships,  filled  with  planters  and  servants, 
and  plantations  controlled  from  England 
and  run  as  corporate  enterprises  on  a  sys 
tem  of  profits.  On  one  side  were  those  who 
represented  feudal  practice  and  tradition, 
the  prerogative,  the  church,  and  the  influ 
ence  of  landed  property  and  privilege; 
on  the  other  were  the  liberals  and  radicals 
in  church  and  state  with  definite  ideas 
regarding  ecclesiastical  organization  and  po 
litical  government,  and  who  won  the  day 
partly  because  events  in  England  were  un 
favorable  to  successful  efforts  on  the  part 
of  the  adherents  of  the  king,  and  partly 
because  those  who  sought  for  permanent 
homes  proved  better  colonizers  than  those 

42 


SECOND   PERIOD,   1655-1682          43 

whose  chief  aim  was  to  promote  plantations 
for  personal  pride  and  commercial  advantage.  - 
The  second  period  of  colonization  differs 
from  the  first  in  certain  fundamental  char 
acteristics.  Religious  conflicts  were  pass 
ing  away;  except  for  the  Quakers  the  Res 
toration  laws  against  the  Dissenters  were 
very  lightly  enforced.  Political  questions, 
conspicuous  though  they  were,  had  been 
in  large  part  answered  in  the  work  of  the 
Long  Parliament  and  the  experiments  of 
the  Cromwellian  period.  Other  issues  were 
crowding  to  the  front.  Trade,  industry, 
and  the  commercial  dominance  of  England 
were  becoming  the  most  absorbing  ques 
tions  of  the  day,  and  men,  notably  the  mer 
chants  and  statesmen,  were  thinking  anew 
about  England's  wealth,  were  watching  with 
concern  the  rapid  rise  of  Holland  as  a  com 
mercial  power,  and  were  studying  as  never 
before  the  opportunities  which  foreign  and 
colonial  trade  offered.  They  looked  to  the 
West  Indies,  and  saw  in  them  new  centres 
of  industrial  and  commercial  activity,  and 
their  imaginations  were  fired  with  enthu 
siasm  for  America  as  a  source  of  wealth. 
Returning  colonists  from  Barbadoes,  sea- 
captains  familiar  with  trade  routes  and  the 
products  of  the  plantations,  merchants  with 


44  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

grievances  against  the  Dutch  and  the  Span 
iards,  urged  on  the  government,  whether  of 
Cromwell  or  Charles  II,  to  cooperate  in 
the  advancement  and  better  organization 
of  trade  and  foreign  plantations.  And  to  the 
royalists  impoverished  by  exile,  and  to  the 
king  whose  business  it  was  to  pay  the  ex 
penses  of  running  the  kingdom  from  a  treas 
ury  never  too  well  filled,  the  importance  of  a 
favorable  balance  of  trade,  revenues  from 
customs,  and  freedom  from  dependence  upon 
other  nations  for  staple  products,  appealed 
with  tremendous  force. 

In  1655  the  Cromwellian  fleet  under 
Admiral  Penn  and  General  Venables  seized 
Jamaica,  and  the  island,  organized  first 
under  military  and  then  under  civil  rule  as  a 
royal  colony,  opened  a  new  world  of  oppor 
tunities  to  Englishmen,  and  hundreds,  en 
couraged  by  royal  proclamations,  flocked 
thither  and  took  up  land.  During  the  next 
five  years  efforts  were  made  to  organize 
companies  for  the  settlement  of  "Florida" 
and  for  trade  in  Spanish  waters,  but  the  dis 
ordered  and  uncertain  political  situation 
at  home  dislocated  business  and  led  to  their 
failure.  After  the  return  of  Charles  II,  in 
1660,  new  attempts  were  made  to  system 
atize  more  effectually  trade  and  plantation 


SECOND   PERIOD,   1655-1682          45 

control,  and  councils  were  appointed  to  take 
these  matters  under  their  immediate  di 
rection.  Charles  II  and  his  advisers,  look 
ing  on  the  Dutch  as  a  menace  to  English 
commercial  expansion  and  their  possession 
of  New  Amsterdam  as  an  injury  to  English 
trade  with  the  colonies,  seized  the  territory 
in  1664  and  renaming  it  New  York  handed 
it  over  as  a  propriety  to  the  Duke  of  York, 
brother  of  the  king.  The  grant  to  the  duke 
included  also  that  portion  of  the  territory 
of  Maine  which  had  been  patented  to  the 
Earl  of  Stirling,  and  also  the  lands  south  of 
New  York  on  the  east  side  of  the  Delaware 
river,  hitherto  unoccupied  save  by  Dutch 
in  the  north  and  Swedes  and  Dutch  in  the 
southern  part.  For  the  first  time  the  Eng 
lish  controlled  the  coast  line  from  Pemaquid 
to  the  Cape  Fear  river. 

Associated  with  the  Duke  of  York  was  a 
group  of  men  who  had  either  accompanied 
the  Stuarts  during  their  exile  or,  serving 
under  the  Protectorate,  had  joined  the 
king  on  his  return  to  England.  Royalists 
though  they  were  and  representative  of  the 
nobility  of  their  day,  they  differed  in  many 
respects  from  those  of  the  earlier  period, 
particularly  in  a  certain  modernness  of 
attitude  toward  colonization,  bred  of  ex- 


46  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

perience  and  knowledge  of  previous  failures 
and  of  a  wider  understanding  of  the  kind  of 
government  that  should  be  established  if 
settlement  were  to  be  successfully  accom 
plished.  They  realized  that  colonists  must 
be  attracted  by  liberal  concessions  and  not 
treated  as  dependent  serfs,  and  the  experi 
ence  of  Barbadoes,  where  existed  freedom 
of  conscience,  assemblies  voluntarily  elected, 
and  the  right  of  law  making,  aided  the  new 
proprietors  in  determining  their  attitude 
toward  those  who  planted  their  lands.  In 
deed  it  is  probably  true  that  the  Barbadians 
themselves  had  an  important  part  in  shaping 
the  first  fundamental  agreements  made  by 
the  proprietaries  with  the  settlers  of  the  new 
territories. 

Immediately  after  receiving  the  grant 
from  his  brother,  the  king,  the  Duke  of 
York  handed  over  that  portion  of  it  which 
lay  between  the  Hudson  and  the  Delaware 
to  two  of  his  most  faithful  friends,  Sir 
George  Carteret,  who  in  1650  had  turned 
out  his  own  family  from  his  castle  in  the  isle 
of  Jersey  to  make  room  for  the  duke  and  his 
retainers,  and  Sir  John  Berkeley,  who  had 
lost  by  the  king's  grant  the  £3500  which  he 
had  spent  in  1662  in  purchasing  the  Earl 
of  Stirling's  rights  in  Long  Island.  Shortly 


SECOND  PERIOD,   1655-1682          47 

before,  Charles  II,  acting  under  the  influence 
of  men  seriously  interested  in  opening  up 
the  unoccupied  portions  of  North  America 
to  trade,  had  granted  the  territory  south 
of  Virginia,  which  had  been  in  part  the  scene 
of  Maltravers'  activity,  to  eight  men,  nobles 
and  members  of  government,  the  Earl  of 
Clarendon,  Earl  of  Craven,  Duke  of  Albe- 
marle  (who  as  General  Monck  had  aided  in 
the  king's  restoration),  Sir  Anthony  Ashley 
Cooper  (Lord  Ashley  and  afterward  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury),  Sir  George  Carteret  and  Sir 
John  Berkeley  (patentees  of  New  Jersey), 
Sir  William  Berkeley  (governor  of  Virginia 
and  recently  in  England),  and  Sir  John 
Colleton  (from  Barbadoes,  also  at  this  time 
in  England).  These  men  were  no  mere 
court  favorites,  but  were  all  interested  in 
using  their  grants  for  the  welfare  of  them 
selves  and  of  England,  and  many  of  them 
were  active  and  efficient  promoters  of  the 
commercial  prosperity  of  the  country.  Thus 
arose  a  new  form  of  ^proprietaj^^controj^ 
in  which  a  group  of  men  combined  together 
as  joint  proprietors  owning  the  land  and 
controlling  the  colony,  not  in  the  interest  of 
religion  or  politics  but  of  trade. 

But  the  new  system  of  proprietary  control, 
represented  by  the  Jerseys,   the  Carolinas, 


48  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

and  the  Bahamas,  did  not  prove  a  successful 
form  of  colonial  enterprise.  There  were  too 
many  proprietors  interested  as  land  holders 
in  the  development  of  their  proprieties.  In 
this  respect  New  Jersey  had  an  extraordi 
nary  career.  Held  by  Carteret  and  Berkeley 
in  joint  ownership  for  ten  years,  1664-1674, 
it  was  finally  divided  into  two  parts,  after 
Berkeley,  wearying  of  his  proprietary  obli 
gations,  had  sold  out  to  a  Quaker,  Edward 
Byllynge,  who  in  turn  conveyed  his  rights 
to  William  Penn  and  two  other  distinguished 
members  of  the  Society  of  Friends.  The 
northern  part,  controlled  by  Carteret,  was 
known  as  East  New  Jersey,  the  southern, 
controlled  by  the  Quakers,  as  West  New 
Jersey.  Before  the  division  joint  proprie 
tary  control  had  centred  chiefly  in  the  north, 
where  political  confusion  reigned  during  the 
early  period,  largely  owing  to  the  presence  of 
New  Englanders,  who  had  settled  the  towns 
of  Elizabeth  and  Newark  and  resented  the 
attempt  of  the  proprietary  governor  to  as 
sert  his  authority  or  to  enforce  the  half 
feudal  rights  of  the  proprietors.  Carteret 
died  in  1679,  and  in  1680  his  executors  put 
up  his  rights  at  auction  and  sold  them  for 
£3400  to  twelve  Quakers,  who  associated 
with  themselves  twelve  others.  Efforts  were 


SECOND   PERIOD,   1655-1682          49 

made  to  build  up  the  colony,  but  without 
much  success,  and  in  1688  the  twenty -four 
gave  up  their  title  to  the  government,  but 
resumed  it  again  after  1689.  Still  they  could 
not  agree,  quarrels  became  frequent,  partic 
ularly  regarding  land  titles,  and  finally  in 
1702  the  English  government  compelled 
them  to  surrender  their  rights  of  govern 
ment  permanently  to  the  crown,  leaving 
to  them  only  the  title  to  the  soil. 

In  West  New  Jersey  there  were  fewer  pro 
prietaries  and  matters  went  more  smoothly. 
Settlement  was  promoted  by  the  Quakers 
and  the  town  of  Burlington  was  founded  in 
1677.  A  very  interesting  and  liberal  form  of 
government  was  provided  and  continued 
for  ten  years,  when  Byllynge  died  and  trans 
ferred  his  claim  to  a  famous  land  promoter, 
Dr.  Coxe  in  England.  But  he  in  1691 
conveyed  the  government  to  the  West  * 
Jersey  Society,  a  body  of  forty-eight  pro 
prietors.  Thus  before  1702  East  and  West 
Jersey  were  in  reality  in  the  hands  of  two 
land  companies,  who  paid  more  attention  to  V 
their  landed  rights  than  to  the  building  up  of 
strong  government.  Quaker  control  in  West 
New  Jersey  came  to  an  end  with  the  advent 
of  the  West  Jersey  Society,  and  though  set 
tlers  came  in  from  New  York,  Long  Island, 


50  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

and  New  England,  the  situation  became  in 
creasingly  unsatisfactory,  and  in  1702  ]  the 
society,  though  retaining  its  title  to  the  soil, 
surrendered  the  colony  to  the  crown.  The 
two  colonies,  united  under  royal  rule,  re 
mained  the  royal  colony  of  New  Jersey  to 
the  end  of  the  colonial  period. 

New  York,  in  the  meantime,  had  entered 
on  its  career  as  a  proprietary  colony  under  the 
Duke  of  York,  and  for  eighteen  years,  barring 
the  brief  period,  1673-1674,  when  the  Dutch 
recaptured  the  colony,  was  governed  as  a 
conquered  province  by  a  series  of  able 
appointees,  Nicolls,  Lovelace,  Andros,  and 
Dongan,  without  popular  cooperation  of  any 
kind.  Though  the  government  was  not 
oppressive,  colonial  discontent  was  manifest, 
and  finally  in  1682,  Dongan  was  instructed 
by  the  duke  to  call  a  popular  assembly. 
This  body  drafted  a  "Charter  of  Liberties," 
but  before  the  document  could  receive 
ducal  ratification  the  situation  in  England 
had  changed,  James,  the  duke,  had  become 
James  II,  the  king.  What  the  duke  seemed 
willing  to  concede,  the  king  refused  to  grant, 
and  the  colony  returned  to  its  former  condi 
tion  of  autocratic  control.  Not  until  after 
the  revolution  of  1688  and  the  overthrow  of 
James  II  was  a  regular  form  of  popular 


SECOND  PERIOD,   1655-1682          51 

government  established  and  an  assembly 
called,  which  met  for  the  first  time  in  1691. 
From  this  time  forward  a  representative  body 
of  the  people  convened  regularly  and  proved 
a  vigorous  and  determined  agent  in  its 
efforts  to  increase  the  powers  of  the  popular 
element.  From  1685  to  the  end  of  the  colo 
nial  period  New  York  was  a  royal  colony. 

More  interesting  than  the  settlement  and 
history  of  the  Jerseys  and  more  significant 
in  many  particulars  than  that  of  New  York, 
were  the  circumstances  which  led  to  the 
founding  of  the  colonies  of  the  Carolinas  and 
the  Bahamas,  for  both  were  representative  of 
a  common  movement.  Of  all  the  proprie 
taries  of  the  Carolinas  the  most  energetic 
was  Anthony  Ashley  Cooper,  afterward  the 
Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  one  of  the  most  impor 
tant  promoters  of  colonial  settlement  and 
policy.  He  worked  in  combination  with  many 
men  familiar  with  colonial  affairs,  and,  thor 
oughly  convinced  of  the  importance  of  the 
colonies  for  trade,  he  spent  four  or  five  years 
in  endeavoring  to  build  up  these  settlements. 
His  ally  and  secretary  was  the  philosopher 
John  Locke,  who  threw  himself  with  great 
enthusiasm  into  the  colonial  scheme  and  was 
probably  as  much  interested  in  trade  as  he 
was  in  the  human  understanding. 


52  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

After  the  first  efforts  of  the  Carolina  pro 
prietors,  during  the  years  from  1666  to  1669, 
had  proved  a  failure,  Ashley,  himself  one  of 
the  patentees,  took  the  matter  in  hand  and 
became  a  colonial  promoter  on  a  large  scale. 
With  others  he  formed  a  company  which 
received  a  grant  of  the  Bahamas  in  1670, 
and  he  began  to  send  over  colonists,  with  the 
intention  of  organizing  Carolina  and  the 
Bahamas  as  strong  centres  of  trade  and 
commerce.  Charleston  was  founded  not 
far  from  the  spot  where  it  now  stands,  and 
the  settlement  grew  in  numbers.  New 
Providence  in  the  Bahamas  was  also  founded, 
and  further  settlement  was  planned  to  the 
southward  of  Charleston.  Already  was  Albe- 
marle  in  the  north  fairly  started  on  its  way 
through  the  influx  of  settlers  from  Virginia, 
and  Ashley  hoped  to  make  the  four  colonies 
centres  of  a  system  of  cooperative  activity 
and  trade.  Already  had  Locke  drawn  up  a 
constitution  for  the  new  settlements,  an 
extraordinary  document,  embodying  elabor 
ate  rules  based  on  feudal  law  touching  the 
division  and  holding  of  land  and  providing 
for  an  hereditary  nobility  of  landgraves  and 
casiques,  and  already  had  Ashley,  made 
Earl  of  Shaftesbury  in  1672  and  president  of 
the  joint  board  of  trade  and  plantations  ap- 


SECOND  PERIOD,   1655-1682          53 

pointed  in  the  same  year,  infused  new  life 
into  the  system  of  colonial  control  in  England. 
For  four  years,  1670-1674,  both  these  men 
labored  to  settle  and  stock  their  colonies, 
to  provide  for  a  suitable  form  of  government, 
and  to  furnish  an  efficient  system  of  colonial 
administration  in  England.  But  their  plans 
were  doomed  to  failure.  The  constitution 
proved,  as  would  be  anticipated,  an  unwork 
able  scheme  for  an  infant  colony,  and 
though  it  continued  for  twenty  years  to  vex 
the  settlers  it  was  eventually  abandoned, 
while  the  group  of  trading  centres  proved 
equally  barren  of  results.  In  England,  though 
Shaftesbury  remained  at  the  head  of  the 
council  till  1674,  he  eventually  fell  from 
power,  and  all  plans  for  colonial  develop 
ment  were  given  up  in  the  political  confusion 
that  followed.  Despite  so  many  apparent*/ 
failures  Shaftesbury  must  be  considered  one 
of  the  greatest  among  our  colonial  founders, 
and  one  who  in  his  management  of  colonial 
affairs  in  England  placed  the  British  colonial 
policy  on  a  broader  and  more  comprehen 
sive  foundation  than  had  hitherto  been  laid. 
To  him  more  than  to  anyone  else  do  North 
and  South  Carolina  and  the  Bahamas  owe 
their  being. 

These  colonies  continued  under  their  re- 


£4  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

spective  bodies  of  proprietors  for  many  years. 
In  South  Carolina  a  prolonged  conflict  took 
place  between  the  colonists  and  the  proprie 
tors  regarding  the  constitution  and  the  landed 
claims  which  ended  in  part  in  a  popular 
victory,  only  to  be  followed  by  further  dis 
putes  concerning  religious  and  military  affairs. 
In  fact,  rule  by  proprietors  was  proving, 
here  as  elsewhere,  hopelessly  out  of  touch 
with  the  sentiments  and  needs  of  the  colonies. 
The  popular  assembly  steadily  encroached 
on  proprietary  prerogative  until  under  pres 
sure  from  the  crown  on  one  side  and  the  popu 
lar  assembly  on  the  other  the  proprietaries 
surrendered  their  colony,  though  it  was  ten 
years  before  the  charter  was  actually  annulled. 
Similarly  in  North  Carolina  the  crown, 
because  of  the  great  disorders  and  dis 
tractions  of  proprietary  rule  with  its  irregu 
lar  and  confused  methods  of  government, 
demanded  the  surrender  of  the  colony  and 
it  too  was  taken  under  the  king's  immediate 
protection  and  government  in  1729. 

The  Bahamas  passed  through  even  a  storm 
ier  history,  becoming  little  more  than  a 
rendezvous  for  pirates  until  1718,  when 
under  Gov.  Woodes  Rogers,  himself  half  a 
buccaneer,  a  semblance  of  order  was  ob 
tained.  But  settlement  was  very  slow,  and, 


SECOND  PERIOD,   1655-1682          55 

with  no  adequate  system  of  popular  govern 
ment  and  no  sufficient  means  of  defence, 
the  colony  remained  the  most  backward  of 
all  the  West  Indies.  Roused  by  reports  of 
the  bad  state  and  condition  of  the  islands 
the  British  government  purchased  the  rights 
of  the  proprietors,  and  the  Bahamas  became 
a  royal  colony  in  1734.  Thus  all  the  colonies 
settled  under  groups  of  proprietors  —  the 
Jerseys,  Carolinas,  and  Bahamas  —  illus 
trate  in  a  striking  manner  the  inefficiency 
of  joint  proprietary  control.  All  became 
seats  of  anarchy  and  misrule  so  glaring  as  to 
demand  in  the  interest  of  imperial  trade  and 
defence  the  interference  of  the  crown. 
/In  the  end  but  two  proprietary  govern-  V 
ments  survived,  those  of  Maryland  and  Penn 
sylvania.  The  reasons  for  their  survival  are 
not  far  to  seek.  Each  was  a  colony  under  a 
single  proprietary,  who  took  a  deep  personal 
interest  in  his  province  and  at  one  time  or  v 
another,  in  the  person  of  the  original  grantee 
or  his  successors,  was  present  in  the  territory. 
In  the  main  the  relations  were  friendly,  and 
the  respective  proprietary  families  considered 
to  a  high  degree  the  welfare  of  their  people. 
Inevitably  there  were  disagreements,  seri 
ous  disagreements,  between  the  popular  and 
proprietary  parties  in  the  colonies,  but  pro- 


56  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

prietary  rule  never  provoked  anarchy  OP 
lawlessness.  Though  each  proprietor  lost 
his  colony  for  a  time,  he  was  able  to  weather 
the  storm,  and  all  the  efforts  of  the  English 
authorities  to  bring  these  governments  under 
the  crown  in  the  eighteenth  century  ended  in 
failure.  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  re 
mained  under  their  proprietary  families 
until  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution. 

The  founding  of  Pennsylvania  was  due  to 
the  activities  of  William  Penn  and  the 
Quakers.  Just  as  at  the  beginning  of  the 
century  Pilgrims,  Puritans,  and  Roman 
Catholics  had  sought  America  for  religious 
or  political  reasons,  so  after  1660  and  the 
passage  of  the  laws  against  Dissenters  — 
commonly  known  as  the  Clarendon  Code  — 
the  Quakers  found  themselves  persecuted 
and  oppressed.  Fantastic  and  extreme  in 
many  of  their  attitudes  they  roused  opposi 
tion  in  England,  and  when  they  came  to 
America  were  hounded  from  colony  to  colony 
without  sympathy  and  without  peace.  Only 
in  Rhode  Island  did  they  find  a  congenial 
resting  place,  and  there  they  became  leaders 
of  government  and  influential  members  of  the 
community.  In  the  Jerseys  also  they  shared 
in  the  control  and  development  of  the  colony. 
But  during  the  years  from  1672  to  1682  the 


SECOND   PERIOD,   1655-1682          57 

Quakers  wanted  a  home  of  their  own,  and 
thus  it  was  that  William  Penn,  son  of  the 
Admiral  Penn,  who  conducted  Cromwell's 
expedition  to  the  West  Indies  in  1654,  peti 
tioned  the  king  for  a  grant  of  land  in  Amer 
ica.  Despite  much  opposition  on  the  part 
of  those  officially  interested  in  the  manage 
ment  of  the  colonies,  who  thought  that  too 
many  independent  settlements  had  already 
been  established  in  America,  Penn  obtained 
the  grant  that  he  asked  for.  He  was  a  friend 
of  the  Stuarts  and  had  a  claim  upon  the 
royal  bounty.  The  only  available  territory 
along  the  coast  was  that  which  lay  between 
New  York  and  the  Jerseys  on  the  north  and 
Maryland  on  the  south,  and  in  this  quarter 
Penn  founded  his  colony. 

Wishing  to  try  a  new  and  holy  experiment, 
he  and  his  fellow  colonists  set  sail  from 
England  in  September,  1682,  and  six  weeks 
later  landed  on  the  banks  of  the  Delaware. 
His  city,  Philadelphia,  the  city  of  brotherly 
love,  had  already  been  laid  out  by  fore 
runners,  who  had  preceded  him,  and  soon 
rose  to  be  a  stately  town  of  houses  and  cot 
tages.  The  city  and  towns  in  the  surrounding 
country  were  soon  settled  by  a  remarkably 
cosmopolitan  population  of  English,  Irish, 
and  \Velsh  Quakers,  German  Mennonites, 


58  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

Danes,  and  Scots,  while  there  already  were 
in  the  colony  on  his  arrival  probably  between 
600  and  1000  Swedes,  Finns,  and  Dutch 
with  prosperous  plantations.  The  colony 
of  Pennsylvania  early  expanded  into  a 
stately  commercial  commonwealth,  at  peace 
with  the  Indians  and  engaged  in  extensive 
commercial  relations  with  other  colonies  on 
the  American  continent  and  in  the  West 
Indies.  But  it  was  rarely  at  peace  within 
itself  or  with  its  neighbors.  For  many 
years  it  was  the  centre  of  differences  of  opin 
ion  and  presistent  disputes.  Noble  man  that 
Penn  was,  he  lacked  a  certain  common  and 
practical  sense  that  might  have  smoothed 
over  many  difficulties.  He  was  confronted 
by  quarrels  among  his  own  settlers  in  Phil 
adelphia,  was  opposed  by  the  Anglican 
church  and  the  royal  officials  in  America, 
and  had  long  and  bitter  controversies  with 
Maryland  on  the  south  and  New  York  on 
the  north,  over  their  respective  boundaries, 
that  were  not  settled  for  eighty  years.  As 
the  sole  proprietor  of  his  province,  Penn 
wished  to  make  his  venture  financially 
profitable.  He  endeavored  to  extend  his 
northern  boundary  to  include  the  great 
fur-bearing  regions  of  the  northwest  and  the 
southern  to  embrace  the  Delaware  river  and 


SECOND   PERIOD,   1655-1682          59 

bay  that  he  might  obtain  a  commercial 
outlet  to  the  ocean.  He  lost  the  northern 
area  in  his  controversy  with  New  York,  but 
he  gained  the  outlet  to  the  ocean  and  the 
control  over  the  three  lower  counties,  now 
the  state  of  Delaware,  in  the  controversy 
with  Maryland. 

Thus  with  the  founding  of  Pennsylvania 
all  the  colonies,  save  Georgia  only,  were 
firmly  settled  before  the  close  of  the  seven 
teenth  century.  Undertaken  in  all  cases, 
save  that  of  Jamaica,  by  private  individuals, 
companies,  joint  proprietors,  or  single  pro 
prietors,  all  except  four  had  become  royal 
colonies  before  the  first  third  of  the  eighteenth 
century  had  passed  away.  After  1700  many 
attempts  were  made  to  unite  all  the  corporate 
and  proprietary  colonies  to  the  crown,  but 
without  success.  Though  always  striving  to 
bring  all  the  colonies  to  one  uniform  royal 
type  and  so  to  consolidate  her  imperial  con 
trol,  England  never  succeeded  in  her  effort. 

The  colonists  were  not  conservative,  satis 
fied,  and  prosperous  Englishmen;  they  were 
as  a  rule  the  discontented  and  restless  adven 
turers,  the  poor,  the  vagrant,  and  even 
those  of  the  criminal  class,  or  else  they  were 
those  whose  views  of  government  and  re 
ligion  did  not  accord  with  the  practices 


60  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

which  prevailed  in  England.  Large  num 
bers  of  the  colonists  were  law-abiding,  God 
fearing,  and  conscientious  people,  but  they 
were  already  liberal  and  even  radical  in  their 
political  opinions  before  they  left  the  home 
\\  country.  England  of  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury  was  seething  with  unrest;  it  was  not  the 
England  which  a  century  later  had  become 
fixed  and  stereotyped  in  its  modes  of  politi 
cal  life  and  thought.  Those  who  migrated 
during  the  reigns  of  the  Stuarts  were  not 
likely  to  carry  with  them  conservative  views 
of  monarchy,  the  divine  right  of  kings,  or  of 
ecclesiastical  tradition.  In  the  large  majority 
of  instances  they  were  inclined  toward  freer 
democratic  life  and  opportunity.  Born  and 
bred  with  a  deep  seated  notion  of  the  rights 
of  Englishmen,  and  coming  into  a  world 
where  frontier  conditions  prevailed  and  life 
was  free  from  all  surrounding  influences  of  the 
past,  it  was  inevitable  that  from  the  beginning 
tendencies  should  have  been  created  toward 
the  establishment  of  self-government,  and 
that  the  history  of  the  colonies  should  have 
been  the  history  of  the  development  of  demo 
cratic  ideas. 

With  the  king  and  the  home  government 
three  thousand  miles  away,  without  a  no 
bility  and  an  established  church,  with  very 


SECOND   PERIOD,   1655-1682          61 

few  conditions  that  made  feudal  incidents 
or  practices  necessary,  the  people  who  set 
tled  America  were  naturally  inclined  to 
consider  before  all  else  their  own  welfare 
and  the  needs  of  their  own  existence.  They 
were  settled  in  a  wilderness,  they  endured 
the  crude  and  often  cruel  hardships  of  their 
surroundings,  they  faced  the  circumstances 
of  their  own  support  under  conditions  that 
were  always  strenuous  and  severe.  They 
had  little  place  for  form  or  ceremony,  for 
privilege  or  preference,  for  the  rights  or 
prerogatives  of  class.  It  was  hardly  to  be 
expected  that  they  would  sacrifice  their  own 
interests  for  the  sake  of  landlords  across  the 
sea  or  for  the  benefit  of  a  king  and  a  kingdom 
that  consistently  deemed  them  but  counters 
in  its  own  game  of  commercial  advantage. 
Between  royal  prerogative  and  mercantile 
policy  on  one  side  and  a  rough  but  impera 
tive  instinct  of  self  preservation  on  the  other, 
there  was  bound  to  ensue  a  conflict,  the 
first  phases  of  which  can  be  seen  at  the  very 
outset  of  our  colonial  history. 


CHAPTER  III 

POLITICAL   AND   SOCIAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

IT  is  evident  that  colonies  extending 
through  so  great  a  portion  of  the  temperate 
and  torrid  zones  would  show  striking  differ 
ences,  even  if  their  peculiarities  had  not 
been  vastly  increased  by  the  circumstances 
attending  their  settlement  and  the  varying 
religions  and  political  influences  which  con 
trolled  and  directed  the  activities  of  the  people 
inhabiting  them.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
consider  here  the  more  extreme  points  of 
unlikeness.  The  rugged,  hardy  life  of  the 
Hudson  Bay  region  stands  in  natural 
contrast  to  that  of  the  tropical  West  Indies. 
These  differences  are  manifest  in  themselves. 
Less  evident  are  the  underlying  character 
istics  of  the  continental  colonies  which  grew 
eventually  into  the  United  States  of  America, 
and  less  conspicuous  their  points  of  likeness 
and  unlikeness.  These  features  are  not  only 
interesting  irf  themselves,  but  they  were  so 
inwrought  into  the  very  fibre  of  colonial  life 
as  to  affect  the  future  career  of  the  nation. 

From  the  political  and  constitutional  point 
of  view  the  peculiarities  of  north  and  south 

62 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS      63 

were  determined  at  the  very  outset  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  In  the  main  New  Eng 
land  was  a  homogeneous  community  with\^ 
the  town  as  the  unit  of  its  settlement  and 
popular  control  of  affairs  as  the  chief  char 
acteristic  of  its  political  life.  Unlike  the  col 
onists  of  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  North 
Carolina,  the  New  Englanders  settled  in 
compact,  nucleated  villages  —  little  congre-  , 
gations  of  men  and  women  of  like  minds, 
socially  similar  in  temperament,  clustered 
closely  about  the  meeting-house,  the  village 
green,  and  the  school.  In  Rhode  Island  the 
towns  were  more  artificially  formed  than 
elsewhere,  owing  to  the  absence  of  religious 
unity,  but  even  there  in  outward  form  at 
least  the  town  conformed  to  the  common 
type.  Wherever  the  Pilgrim  or  Puritan 
found  a  resting  place  he  set  up  a  form  of 
local  life  thoroughly  characteristic  of  him 
self  and  his  traditions.  He  had  lived  in 
towns  of  old  England  and  he  had  cultivated 
the  soil  in  the  open  field,  dwelling  in  close 
proximity  to  his  fellows,  owning  land  in 
small  parcels,  and  using  pasture  and  wood 
land  in  common  with  his  neighbors.  In  a 
majority  of  cases  he  had  come  to  America 
not  as  an  isolated  individual  but  as  a  member 
of  a  group  or  company  of  Christians  cov- 


64  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

enanted  together  with  God,  an  indissoluble 
religious  body  which  became  the  basis  of  the 
town  in  Massachusetts,  Plymouth,  and  Con 
necticut.  Many  of  these  communities  drew 

.up  formal  plantation  covenants,  declaring 
themselves  to  be  "bodies  politic";  while 
others  organizing  themselves  as  joint-stock 
companies  for  the  purchase  and  distribution 
of  land  became  landed  proprietors  as  well. 

In  the  possession  and  cultivation  of  his 
land  the  New  Englander  was  burdened  with 

•  no  feudal  obligations,  for  he  owed  no  fealty 
and  he  paid  no  quit-rent.  In  New  Hamp 
shire  where  quit-rents  were  demanded  by 
Mason,  the  payments  wrere  inconsiderable 
owing  to  the  "perverse  obstinacy"  of  most 
of  the  inhabitants;  and  when  Fen  wick, 
agent  of  the  patentees  of  the  short  lived 
Saybrook  settlement,  proposed  in  1643  to 
save  the  venture  from  bankruptcy  by  "a 
small  rent  out  of  every  acre,"  he  found  that 
the  people  of  New  England  deemed  them 
selves  supreme  lords  of  their  own  lands 
and  that  a  quit-rent  would  not  be  borne. 
The  New  Englander  held  his  land  either  as 
an  outright  gift  or  as  his  share  of  territory 
purchased  from  a  common  fund,  and  his 
tenure,  subject  only  to  the  higher  needs 
of  the  community,  was  for  the  most  part 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS       65 

absolute.  Imbued  with  the  idea  of  religious 
and  political  equality  for  all  the  "godly  men,"/ 
he  endeavored  to  divide  evenly  the  advan 
tages  and  burdens  of  the  community  by  dis 
tributing  land  in  small  and  scattered  parcels 
and  by  giving  every  one  a  share  in  whatever 
means  of  subsistence  the  town  possessed. 
He  forbade  accumulation  of  landed  property 
and  knew  nothing  of  communal  holding  of 
land.  All  undivided  land  was  owned  either 
by  the  original  proprietors  or  by  the  town 
in  its  corporate  capacity,  thus  exemplifying 
Winthrop's  doctrine  of  individual  ownership 
combined  with  common  use.  The  inevitable 
result  was  the  equality  of  all  men  before  God 
in  the  church  covenant,  the  equality  of  all  men 
before  the  law  in  the  plantation  covenant,  and 
the  equality  of  all  members  of  the  commu/v 
nity  in  matters  of  land  holding  and  privilege. 
The  elimination  of  quit-rents,  primogeniture, 
escheat,  and  similar  incidents  found  elsewhere 
among  the  colonies,  tended  to  the  develop 
ment  of  a  democratic  spirit  in  New  England. 
The  peculiarities  of  town  organization  and 
life  found  a  counterpart  in  the  political  sys 
tem  established  by  the  colonists  in  New  J 
England.  The  charter  which  the  Massa-  y^ 
chusetts  Bay  Company  received  from  King 
Charles,  February  27,  1629,  granted  exten- 


66  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

sive  governmental  and  legislative  powers, 
such  as  the  right  to  elect  its  own  officers, 
to  make  its  own  by-laws,  and  to  add  to  its 
members.  In  the  exercise  of  its  powers  the 
company  acted  as  a  democratic  body  of 
shareholders,  a  fact  that  was  destined  to 
affect  profoundly  the  governmental  history 
of  the  colony,  inasmuch  as  the  company, 
instead  of  remaining  in  England  and  attempt 
ing  from  there  to  establish  a  colony  or 
colonies,  itself  removed  to  America  and 
became  a  colony.  In  1630  governor,  deputy 
governor,  and  a  majority  of  assistants  sailed 
for  New  England,  carrying  with  them  their 
charter.  Thus  the  company  ceased  to  be  a 
mere  trading  corporation,  the  object  of  which 
was  to  make  money  out  of  its  ventures,  and 
took  instead  the  form  of  an  incorporated 
group  of  undividuals  seeking  in  a  new 
country  a  permanent  home  and  an  oppor 
tunity  of  worshipping  God  in  their  own  way. 
The  other  colonies  of  New  England  shaped 
their  governments  more  or  less  after  that  of 
Massachusetts,  and  thus  there  came  into 
existence  forms  of  political  life  in  town  and 
colony  that  with  surprising  uniformity  placed 
the  source  of  authority  in  all  or  a  portion  of 
the  people.  However  much  Massachusetts 
may  have  declared  that  democracy  was  not 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS       67 

ordained  of  God  and  that  her  system  was 
not  democratic,  and  however  much  aris 
tocratic  distinctions  may  have  prevailed  in 
social  life  and  religious  intolerance  influenced 
the  policy  of  the  New  England  colonies 
toward  others,  the  fact  remains  that  in  New 
England  there  existed  in  the  structure  of  the 
body  politic  little  that  was  either  feudal^ 
ecclesiastical,  or  monarchical,  and  fewer 
changes  had  to  be  made  in  the  succeeding 
century  and  a  half  to  effect  the  complete 
democratization  of  the  colonies  there  than 
anywhere  else  on  the  colonial  seaboard.  Only 
recently  has  Rhode  Island  thrown  off  her  dis 
trust  of  delegated  power  and  introduced  into 
her  government  the  feature  of  a  strong  gover 
nor  with  the  right  of  veto  on  legislation. 

The  colonists  who  set  up  these  govern 
ments  were  political  as  well  as  religious  radi 
cals,  believers  in  equality  among  men, 
popular  control  of  magistracies,  and  repre-* 
sentative  government.  Men  of  similar  views 
remained  in  England  and  played  leading 
parts  in  the  affairs  of  their  time.  Notable 
among  them  were  such  radical  non-conform 
ists  as  the  Independents,  who  brought 
Charles  I  to  his  death  and  set  up  a  minority 
government  of  the  "godly";  and  the  extreme 
radicals,  democrats  or  levellers,  with  whom 


68  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

the  conservative  Puritans  of  the  type  of 
Warwick,  Barrington,  Lord  Saye  and  Sele, 
and  John  Pym  had  little  in  sympathy, 
who  voiced  their  opinions  in  the  document 
known  as  The  Agreement  of  the  People,  which, 
presented  by  the  rank  and  file  of  the  army  to 
the  Rump  Parliament  on  January  20,  1649, 
advocated  a  government  practically  the 
same  as  that  already  at  work  in  Rhode  Island 
and  Connecticut.  But  their  plans,  already 
on  trial  in  New  England,  were  rejected  out 
of  hand  in  old  England  where  they  were 
deemed  subversive  and  dangerous.  Only 
in  a  land  free  from  ecclesiastical  and  monarch 
ical  tradition  could  they  find  favor.  Eng 
land  at  this  time  was  not  a  seed  ground  for 
democracy,  and  it  was  no  accident  that  be 
fore  Cromwell's  experiments  had  run  their 
course  the  English  people  were  ready  to 
return  to  the  monarchy.  After  1660,  there 
fore,  New  England  and  old  England  had 
little  in  common  as  far  as  political  ideas  and 
institutions  were  concerned. 

The  governments  of  Virginia  and  Mary 
land  differed  greatly  in  matters  of  detail 
but  were  similar  in  certain  essential  features, 
particularly  when  contrasted  with  the  dem 
ocratic  system  of  New  England.  The  settle 
ment  of  Virginia  on  the  banks  of  the  James 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS       69 

at  first  struck  no  deep  root,  and  for  a  dozen 
years  it  was  questionable  whether  it  would 
live  or  die.  The  venture  of  the  London  Com 
pany  was  one  from  which  profit  was  sought, 
and  unlike  their  compatriots  in  New  Eng 
land  the  early  settlers  in  Virginia  had  not 
gone  to  America  to  escape  religious  or  politi 
cal  persecution.  At  the  beginning  the  colony 
possessed  no  power  of  its  own  to  live,  for  it 
was  governed,  regulated,  and  chastised  by  the 
company  in  London,  which  gave  it  such  life 
as  it  possessed.  At  first  the  colonists  were 
men  only;  we  hear  of  no  women  till  1608, 
when  the  first  marriage  took  place;  and  the 
first  child  was  not  born  until  1609  or  1610. 
Ship-loads  of  marriageable  women  were  de 
spatched  by  the  company  at  various  times, 
so  that  family  life  as  well  as  emigration  was 
artificially  fostered.  There  was  no  such_ 
voluntary  migration  to  Virginia  as  to  New 
England;  colonists  were  sought  for  by  the 
company,  encouraged  by  various  induce 
ments  to  go  to  a  land  the  reputation  of  which 
was  impaired  by  the  nature  of  the  climate)^ 
and  the  great  number  of  deaths;  and  to 
obtain  settlers  it  was  necessary  for  some  years 
"to  take  any  that  could  be  got  of  any  sort 
and  on  any  terms."  Even  as  late  as  1618 
vagrants  from  London  were  sent  over,  and 


70  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

in  common  with  other  colonies  Virginia  was 
burdened  with  criminals  from  British  prisons, 
the  importation  of  which  she  tried  to  prevent 
unsuccessfully  by  legislation  as  late  as  1722. 
Thus  among  the  people  who  settled  Virginia 
/^there  existed  no  homogeneity,  no  similarity 
of  origin,  customs,  experience,  political  prin 
ciples,  or  religious  thought. 

In  making  their  settlements  the  Virginia^ 
colonists  were  subject  to  none  of  those 
influences  that  drew  the  New  Englanders 
into  a  close  Congregational  organization  by 
towns.  Very  few  of  the  Virginians  were 
either  Puritans  or  Separatists,  and  those  few 
were  bound  by  no  church  covenant  or  plan 
tation  compact.  Though  liberty  of  religion 
prevailed,  the  Church  of  England  was  made 
formally  the  established  church  of  the  colony 
and  its  clergy  were  supported  by  general 
taxation.  There  was  but  one  plan  of  settle 
ment,  that  provided  by  the  higher  authorities. 
The  first  town,  Jamestown,  was  a  fort 
within  which  were  houses  and  a  church; 
the  second,  Henrico,  was  also  a  fort;  and 
neither  bore  resemblance  to  a  New  England 
town.  Though  the  settlement  spread  grad 
ually  from  the  Falls  (Henrico)  to  the  mouth 
of  the  James,  there  was  nowhere  compactness 
of  life  or  grouping  of  colonists.  Coming  to 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS        71 

America  with  no  definite  plan  of  settlement 
in  mind  and  having  no  common  bond,  re 
ligious  or  otherwise,  the  Virginians  felt  , 
more  readily  than  the  New  Englanders  the ' 
effects  of  climate,  soil,  and  open  country. 
The  heat  of  the  climate,  the  wide  stretches 
of  land,  and  the  ease  with  which  tobacco  was 
cultivated,  determined  their  manner  of  life, 
and  we  find  them  scattered  along  the  banks  of 
the  rivers  in  private  plantations,  so  far  apart 
as  to  demand  a  loose  political  organization^ 
first  of  hundreds  and  eventually  of  counties. 
The  system  of  land  distribution  was  a 
matter  of  vital  importance  in  the  history 
of  Virginia.  In  New  England  the  final  par 
tition  of  the  soil  among  the  settlers  was 
effected  by  the  colonists  themselves  accord- 
/  ing  to  their  own  ideas.  In  Virginia,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  company  controlled  the  en-X 
tire  land  system.  At  first  no  such  thing  as 
private  property  prevailed.  Not  until  1614 
was  any  land  distributed  to  colonists,  and  the 
little  that  was  given  out  was  burdened  with  a 
quit-rent  of  corn  and  an  obligation  to  labor 
for  the  company  one  month  in  the  year. 
Not  until  1618  did  any  general  distribution 
take  place.  Even  then,  the  acquiring  of  a 
title  was  difficult,  and  at  first  the  land  was 
largely  controlled  by  shareholders  of  the 


72  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

company,  two  thirds  of  whom  remained  in 
England.  Later,  any  emigrant  who  paid 
his  own  passage  money  might  have  fifty 
acres;  but  in  the  main  the  holdings  were 
large  and  there  were  no  such  minute  proper 
ties  as  in  New  England.  It  has  been  esti 
mated  that  from  1632  to  1650  the  average 
area  acquired  by  grant  in  Virginia  was  four 
hundred  and  forty-six  acres  and  later  grants 
often  rose  as  high  as  twenty  thousand  acres. 
The  grants  steadily  increased  in  size  as  the 
years  passed,  and  were  held,  not  in  scattered 
parcels,  but  in  compact  masses  forming  wide 
and  isolated  farms.  They  were  cultivated, 
not  by  the  owner,  but  by  white  servants 
and  negroes,  neither  of  wThom  had  any  rights 
in  the  soil.  The_resnlt  of  these  conditions  i' 
was_-soeie4  inequality;  the  country  -was  di 
vided  into  large  plantations;  accumulation 
of  property  in  single  hands  became  a  natural 
and  inevitable  consequence,  and  a  life  essen 
tially  aristocratic  arose.  Such  a  condition 
was  further  emphasized  by  the  establish 
ment  of  the  Church  of  England  as  the 
church  of  the  colony,  by  the  officialism  that 
was  sure  to  arise  in  a  government  where 
nearly  all  the  appointments  lay  in  the  hands, 
not  of  the  people,  but  of  the  governor  and  the 
crown,  and  by  many  incidents  of  feudal 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS       73 

tenure.  Lands  were  held  in  free  and  common 
socage,  involving  declaration  of  fealty  and 
payment  of  quit-rent;  succession  was  gov 
erned  by  the  law  of  primogeniture;  and 
neglect  to  seat  lands  was  legally  followed 
by  forfeiture  and  escheat.  Virginia  knew 
nothing  of  the  small  and  scattered  holdings, 
the  widespread  right  of  private  ownership, 
and  the  equal  division  of  property  in  case  of 
intestacy  that  prevailed  in  New  England. 
In  the  latter  case  the  unit  of  agricultural 
and  social  life  was  essentially  democratic, 
in  the  former  it  was  thoroughly  aristocratic. 
Virginia  was,  however,  the  first  to  enjoy 
the  benefits  of  a  representative  government, 
but  not  until  many  years  from  her  first 
foundation.  By  the  first  charter  all  the  king's 
subjects  in  Virginia  were  to  enjoy  the  liber 
ties,  franchises,  and  immunities  of  English 
men,  but  just  what  was  meant  by  that  phrase 
in  the  year  1606  would  probably  be  difficult 
to  determine.  That  James  I  had  no  inten 
tion  of  admitting  self-government  into  the 
colony  -and  that  the  Virginia  Company  of 
London  at  first  deemed  the  settlement  but  a 
plantation  and  the  people  there  but  servants 
of  the  company,  all  the  evidence  goes  to 
show.  For  the  first  eleven  years  Virginia  was 
ruled  by  despotic  governors  acting  under 


74  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

instructions  from  England.  Not  until  No 
vember  28,  1618,  was  the  "great  charter 
of  privileges,"  designed  by  Sir  Edwin  Sandys 
and  other  members  of  the  company  to  be  the 
constitutional  basis  of  a  self-governing  colony 
in  America,  ratified  and  signed;  and  not 
until  April  29,  1619,  did  it  reach  the  governor 
of  Virginia  with  instructions  for  its  intro 
duction.  Under  these  instructions,  Governor 
Yeardley  summoned  an  assembly  off  repre 
sentatives  from  the  "towns,  hundreds,  and 
plantations"  of  the  colony  which  met  in  the 
choir  and  nave  of  the  church  at  Jamestown.  / 
Thus  the  creation  of  the  Virginia  House  of  ^ 
Burgesses  was  not  the  act  of  the  people 
themselves,  and  there  is  nothing  to  show  that 
the  company  in  granting  this  important 
constitutional  privilege  was  influenced  by 
complaints  from  the  colony.  This  scheme 
of  self-government  through  an  elected  house 
of  burgesses  did  not  spring  out  of  the  con 
victions  of  the  Virginia  colonist.  Popular 
government  in  Virginia  differed  in  this  respect 
"Vfrom  that  of  New  England,  where  the  right 
of  the  people  to  control  government  was  a 
fundamental  part  of  the  political  faith  of  the 
settlers.  Governor,  council,  secretary,  and 
other  officials  were  commissioned  by  the  crown 
in  England,  while  the  house  of  burgesses  was 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS       75 

elected  by  the  people  in  Virginia.  Such  was 
the  form  of  government  that  prevailed  through 
the  colonial  period  in  all  the  royal  colonies. 

Equally  unlike  New  England  and  in  many 
respects  different  from  Virginia  were  the 
proprietary  colonies  of  Maryland  and  Penn 
sylvania.  Indeed,  in  some  particulars,  Mary 
land  was  unlike  any  of  the  other  colonies, 
for  it  not  only  recognized  certain  incidents  of 
feudalism  but  reproduced  in  all  particulars 
the  rights,  jurisdictions,  ?.?ul  immunities  of  a 
medieval  fief.  Sir  George  Calvert,  made 
Baron  Baltimore  in  the  Irish  peerage  in  1624, 
was  the  only  one  of  the  single  proprietors 
during  the  decade  before  the  Civil  War  to 
prosecute  successfully  his  plan  for  a  colony. 
Though  the  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania 
charters  were  similar  in  many  respects,  the 
half  century  of  time  and  experience  that  sepa 
rated  them  left  visible  traces  in  the  text  of 
the  latter  document.  Baltimore,  Penn,  and 
the  Carolina  and  New  Jersey  proprietaries 
owned  the  lands  of  their  respective  provinces 
as  they  owned  any  private  estate  of  land,  and 
though  their  tenure  was  not  military,  as 
had  been  that  of  some  of  the  earlier  and  un 
successful  promoters,  "holding  of  the  crown  by 
the  sword,"  it  was  still  feudal,  for  they  made 
yearly  payments  in  recognition  of  the  king's 


76  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

suzerainty.  These  payments  were  actually 
made  to  the  crown,  and  in  the  case  of  the 
South  Carolina  proprietors,  who  were  always 
in  arrears,  amounted  to  a  considerable  sum. 

Thus  their  colonies  were  provinces  or 
seignories,  though  differing  greatly  in  the 
extent  of  feudal  practice  prevailing  among 
them.  Yet  all  could  sub-infeudate  their 
lands  and  could  fix  the  services,  customs,  and 
rents  as  they  might  desire.  They  could 
erect  manors,  thus  authorizing  the  holding 
of  courts  baron  and  leet,  though  none  ever 
were  so  held  except  in  Maryland.  To  them 
and  their  heirs,  or  their  deputies,  was  granted 
authority  to  make  laws  for  the  province, 
with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  freemen 
or  their  representatives,  and  to  issue  ordi 
nances  in  times  of  emergency  or  otherwise. 
They  could  appoint  all  officials  and  consti 
tute  all  courts  for  the  execution  of  justice. 
Thus  neither  Maryland,  the  Jerseys,  the]/ 
Carolinas,  nor  Pennsylvania  were  colonies  in 
the  New  England  sense  of  the  word;  they 
were  feudal  provinces.  Baltimore,  for  ex 
ample,  was  not  only  a  proprietor,  he  was 
also  the  lord  of  a  fief  with  almost  vice 
regal  powers,  and  this  constitutional  peculi 
arity  has  to  be  reckoned  with,  not  only  in  the 
history  of  Maryland,  but  in  that  of  all  the 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS       77 

proprietary  colonies.  In  the  charter  to  Penn, 
certain  special  requirements  were  inserted, 
due  to  the  experience  which  the  British 
government  had  had  with  its  colonies  dur 
ing  the  preceding  seventy -five  years.  Penn 
must  keep  an  agent  in  England  ready  to 
answer  before  the  English  courts  for  any 
violations  or  neglects  in  the  observance 
by  the  colony  of  the  acts  of  trade;  he  or  his 
deputy  must  send  all  laws  to  England  for 
confirmation  or  disallowance  within  five  years 
after  their  enactment;  he  must  allow  the 
colonists  freely  to  appeal  from  the  colonial 
courts  to  the  king  if  they  desired;  he  could 
not  have  full  jurisdiction,  as  did  Baltimore, 
over  the  levying  of  taxes  and  customs  dues  in 
the  colony;  and  he  must  recognize  the  right 
of  the  bishop  of  London  to  appoint  min 
isters  in  the  colony  should  a  certain  number 
of  colonists  so  request.  Thus  Maryland  and 
Pennsylvania,  the  only  two  proprietary  col 
onies  that  survived,  stand  in  striking  contrast, 
as  far  as  their  relations  with  the  home  govern 
ment  were  concerned.  The  former  was  to  a 
large  extent  beyond  the  reach  of  British 
authority,  the  latter  was  constantly  liable  to 
British  interference. 

In    local    government    and    organization, 
Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  differed  widely 


78  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

from  each  other  and  from  New  England, 
Maryland  in  this  respect  resembling  Virginia. 
Even  the  first  Maryland  settlement,  St. 
Mary's,  was  not  a  town,  "extending  in  length 
by  the  water  about  five  miles  and  in  breadth 
upward  toward  the  land  not  above  one  mile 
-  in  all  which  space,  excepting  only  the  pro 
prietary's  house  and  the  buildings  wherein 
the  courts  and  offices  were  kept,  there  were 
not  above  thirty  houses,  and  those  at  con 
siderable  distance  from  each  other,  and  the 
buildings  (as  in  all  other  parts  of  the  prov 
ince)  very  mean  and  little,  and  generally  of 
the  manner  of  the  meanest  houses  in  Eng 
land."  There  were  no  other  places  that  were 
called  or  could  be  called  towns,  "the  people 
there  not  affecting  to  build  near  each  other, 
but  so  as  to  have  their  houses  near  the  water 
for  convenience  of  trade,  and  their  lands  on 
each  side  of  and  behind  their  houses,  by  which 
it  happens  that  in  most  places  there  are  not 
thirty  houses  in  a  space  of  fifty  miles."  The 
efforts  of  the  proprietary  to  create  compact 
centres  of  population  resulted  in  the  estab 
lishment  of  a  few  places,  such  as  Oxford 
Town,  Charles  Town,  Calvert  Town,  and 
Battle  Town,  which  were  not  really  towns, 
but  resembled  towns  more  than  did  any 
thing  in  Virginia.  With  the  growth  of  the 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS       70 

colony  and  the  increase  in  the  number  of 
settlers  the  lands  about  the  rivers  emptying 
into  Chesapeake  Bay  on  both  sides  were 
occupied,  and  large  plantations  came  into 
existence.  Baltimore  encouraged  large  hold 
ings,  and  he  and  his  successors  erected  more 
than  seventy  manors,  of  a  thousand  acres 
or  more  apiece,  along  the  Potomac,  the 
Patuxent,  the  Patapsco,  and  their  tributaries. 
Each  "lord"  paid  a  quit-rent  to  the  proprie 
tary  and  enjoyed  according  to  the  terms  of 
the  grant  "the  royalties  and  privileges  as 
were  usually  belonging  to  such  manors  in 
England."  On  two  manors,  St.  Gabriel's 
and  St.  Clement's,  courts  leet  and  baron 
were  held,  and  during  the  early  years  of  their 
history  the  settlers  indulged  in  many  of  the 
incidents  and  obligations  of  feudalism.  There 
was  no  military  service  and  there  was  little 
descent  by  primogeniture  and  only  occasion 
ally  an  entailed  estate,  but  there  were  such 
seignorial  privileges  as  advowson  of  churches, 
right  of  free  hunting,  and  the  holding  of 
courts  baron  and  leet  with  their  medieval 
methods  of  land  conveyancing,  and  there  were 
freeholds  and  apparently  in  a  few  instances 
copyholds,  for  which  provision  was  certainly 
made  in  the  instructions  of  the  proprietary. 
In  Pennsylvania  and  the  Jerseys  the  dis- 


80  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

tribution  of  land  into  parcels  of  great  variety 
as  to  size  and  description  took  the  form  of 
land  speculation  in  the  interest  of  the  pro 
prietaries,  but  it  did  not  prevent  in  either 
colony  the  erection  of  towns  and  cities. 
New  Englanders,  Dutch,  and  Quakers  had 
already  founded  towns  in  the  Jerseys,  and 
the  city  of  Burlington  became  an  important 
commercial  centre  before  the  rise  of  Phil 
adelphia.  Penn  made  elaborate  provisions 
for  the  settlement  of  his  colonists  in  villages 
and  boroughs,  but  his  plans  were  success 
ful  only  in  part.  Manors,  plantations,  and 
villages  came  into  existence,  largely  under 
the  control  of  the  counties,  but  they  pos 
sessed  very  little  local  vitality.  The  only  self- 
governing  towns  at  first  were  those  which 
Penn  found  on  coming  to  his  province  — 
Newcastle  and  Chester  (Upland),  and  the 
one  self-governing  borough  that  he  consti 
tuted,  Germantown,  forfeited  its  charter  in 
1707.  Afterward  Chester,  Bristol,  Lancaster, 
and  Carlisle  were  raised  to  this  position  of 
dignified  independence.  Throughout  the 
colonial  period  Pennsylvania  remained  a 
colony  of  one  city  with  its  hinterland  an 
agricultural  area  inhabited  by  settlers  scat 
tered  in  plantations  or  located  in  compact 
but  not  self-governing  villages,  thus  consti- 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS       81 

luting  a   sort  of  -  compromise    between   the 
systems  of  New  England  and  Virginia. 

Thus  in  central  government  and  local 
organization,  in  land  holding  and  distribu 
tion,  and  in  the  many  incidents  of  the  life 
of  the  colonists,  contrasts  appear  in  the 
seventeenth  century  which  are  suggestive 
factors  in  northern  and  southern  development. 
In  government  and  legal  practices  New  Eng-\j 
land  had  drawn  away  from  old  England 
more  thoroughly  than  had  Maryland  and 
Virginia,  which  still  retained  social  and  gov 
ernmental  peculiarities  that  were  similar  to 
prevailing  practices  at  home.  Simplicity 
characterized  the  one;  social  formality  to  a* 
certain  extent  the  other.  At  Jamestown, 
every  Sunday,  we  are  told  "the  Lord  Gov 
ernor  attended  church  in  state  accompanied 
with  all  the  councillors,  captains,  other  offi 
cers,  and  all  the  gentlemen,  and  with  a 
guard  of  fifty  halberdiers  in  his  Lordship's 
livery,  fair  red  cloaks,  on  each  side  and  be 
hind  him.  The  Lord  Governor  sat  in  the 
choir,  in  a  green  velvet  chair,  with  a  velvet 
cushion  before  him  on  which  he  knelt,  and 
the  council,  captains,  and  officers  sat  on  each 
side  of  him,  each  in  his  place;  and  when  the 
Lord  Governor  returned  home,  he  was 
waited  on  in  the  same  manner  to  his  house. " 


82  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

In  Plymouth,  on  the  other  hand,  the  men  of 
the  congregation  assembled  "by  beat  of  drum, 
each  with  his  musket  or  firelock,  in  front  of 
the  captain's  door;  they  have  their  cloaks 
on  and  place  themselves  in  order,  three 
abreast,  and  are  led  by  a  sergeant  with  beat 
of  drum.  Behind  comes  the  governor  in  a 
long  robe;  beside  him,  on  the  right  hand, 
comes  the  preacher  with  his  cloak  on,  and 
on  the  left  hand  the  captain  with  his  side 
arms  and  cloak  on,  and  with  a  small  cane 
in  his  hand,  and  so  they  march  in  good 
order  and  each  sets  his  arms  down  near 
him."  The  touch  of  religious  simplicity 
in  the  one  contrasted  with  the  aristocratic 
stateliness  of  the  other  marks  in  exaggerated 
form  a  difference  that  did  exist  between  Vir 
ginia  and  New  England. 

Yet  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  believe  that 
democracy  and  simplicity  were  the  pre 
vailing  characteristics  of  the  north,  just  as 
it  would  be  an  error  to  assert  that  Virginia 
was  controlled  by  none  but  cavaliers  even  in 
colonial  times.  Though  democracy  pre 
vailed  in  New  England  as  a  principle  of 
government  it  was  far  from  dominant  as  a 
rule  of  social  life.  Every  part  of  New  Eng 
land  had  its  aristocratic  distinctions  and  its 
regard  for  the  niceties  of  rank.  The  Massa- 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS       83 

chusetts  leaders,  in  the  early  years  at  least, 
considered  the  order  of  the  magistracy  arid 
the  rank  of  a  gentleman  very  nearly  synony 
mous,  and  the  Massachusetts  Body  of  Liber 
ties  enacted  that  no  true  gentleman  or  none 
equal  to  a  gentleman  should  be  punished 
with  whipping  unless  his  crime  was  very 
shameful  and  his  course  of  life  vicious  and 
profligate.  Seats  in  meeting-houses,  lists 
in  college  commencement  programs,  places 
at  table  or  in  processions,  were  regulated  with 
extraordinary  care.  One-fourteenth  only  of 
those  who  came  to  New  England  had  the 
distinctive  title  of  "Mister,"  though  many 
others  won  that  honor  later  by  faithful  offi 
cial  service.  Office-holding  was  one  of  the 
most  certain  paths  to  social  distinction; 
and  in  town  and  colony  the  people  loved  to 
honor  with  reelection  after  reelection  those 
whom  they  knew  to  be  worthy.  In  all  the 
colonies,  especially  in  Massachusetts  and 
New  Haven,  the  clergy  were  political  leaders 
as  well  as  moral  guides,  and  their  injunctions 
were  deemed  second  only  to  the  command 
ments  of  God.  Judges  and  magistrates 
stood  with  the  clergy  as  leaders  in  the  social 
order  and  with  them  shared  the  respect  and 
obedience  of  the  people.  The  code  of  Jaw 
and  morals  was  exceedingly  severe  and  pri- 


84  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

vate  life  was  rigorously  regulated  by  law. 
The  Massachusetts  Body  of  Liberties,  the 
Connecticut  Code  of  1650,  the  New  Haven 
Code  of  1655,  and  many  separate  statutes, 
passed  after  those  dates,  declared  what  men 
should  and  should  not  do.  Even  the  famous 
Blue  Laws  of  Connecticut  were  only  an 
exaggerated  expression  of  actual  statutes. 
,  New  England  was  before  all  else  theologi- 
cal.  The  Word  of  God  was  always  morally, 
and  sometimes  officially,  the  guide  of  life. 
Church  was  above  state,  and  civil  rulers, 
though  elected  by  the  people,  were  after  all 
God's  ministers  for  the  guidance  and  correc 
tion  of  all.  Hence  duty  to  God  and  fear  of 
offending  God  dominated  men's  thoughts, 
and  no  care  was  given  to  the  duty  to  kings  or 
to  fear  of  offending  them.  Neither  statute 
nor  code  during  the  first  half  century  made 
any  reference  to  other  sovereign  than  God, 
and  sins  against  society  were  construed  rather 
in  a  religious  than  in  a  social  light.  In  their 
fear  of  idolatrous  practices,  in  their  attempt 
to  regulate  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath, 
in  their  formulation  of  a  code  of  morals  and 
social  relations  that  went  counter  to  many  of 
the  finest  instincts  of  human  nature,  and  in 
their  rejection  of  all  honest  but  "uncalled" 
men  as  unworthy  to  be  saved  and  destined 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS       85 

with  infants  unbaptised  to  be  eternally 
damned,  they  made  a  God  out  of  their  own  im 
aginations  and  crushed  out  of  themselves  and 
others  the  humanizing  sentiments  of  philan 
thropy  and  love.  The  Puritan  was  not  inten 
tionally  inhuman,  but  like  the  medieval  monk 
he  believed  that  beauty  and  pleasure,  com 
fort  and  joy  were  offensive  in  the  sight  of  God. 
On  the  other  hand  the  Puritan  was  very 
much  like  other  men  and  often  far  from  being 
the  narrow  and  stiff-necked  religionist  that 
tradition  has  made  him.  "Alas,  alas,  my 
dear  lord,"  wrote  that  austere  dogmatist 
of  later  years,  John  Cotton  of  Massachusetts, 
"I  see  by  often  experience  the  shallowness 
of  my  own  judgment."  "I  pray  you  send  me 
two  or  three  sheets  of  gilded  paper,"  wrote 
John  Davenport  of  New  Haven,  "I  am  about 
to  write  to  my  Lord  Keeper,"  and  this  man 
of  all  men  who  eschewed  worldly  vanities 
and  the  vain  contrivances  of  men,  sealed  his 
worldly  request  with  a  worldly  coat  of  arms 
in  red  sealing-wax.  "We  hope  to  live  to 
gether  in  the  heavens  tho'  the  Lord  have 
denied  that  union  on  earth,"  wrote  Roger 
Williams  of  Rhode  Island  to  Lady  Harrington, 
whose  niece  he  wished  to  marry,  and  the  great 
Tolerationist  poured  forth  his  heart  in  very 
human  fashion  on  his  disappointment  in  love 


86  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

and  on  the  uncertainties  of  his  future  career. 
There  are  no  more  beautiful  love-letters  than 
those  which  John  Winthrop  the  younger 
wrote  to  his  wife.  The  Puritan  frequently 
yielded  to  his  sense  of  humor,  and  indulged 
his  appetite  for  the  good  things  of  this  world. 
Many  a  one  could  descend  to  the  frivolity  of 
a  joke;  Cotton  Mather  was  a  rare  punster; 
and  Samuel  Stone  of  Hartford  was  "of  a  sud 
den  and  pleasant  wit."  Numbers  of  the 
worthy  clergy  and  magistrates  smoked  to 
bacco,  though  Massachusetts  classed  tobacco 
smokers  with  idlers,  vagrants,  and  other  un 
profitable  persons,  and  Connecticut  strongly 
disapproved  of  the  practice,  even  when  allow 
ing  it  under  certain  stringent  conditions.  Gov 
ernor  Eaton  of  New  Haven  kept  a  hospitable 
table,  and  Samuel  Sewall,  the  famous  diarist, 
amid  much  sickness  and  sorrow  enjoyed  life. 
The  gloomiest  centre  of  Puritanism  was 
Massachusetts,  where  religious  feeling  be 
came  strained  and  intense,  and  men  grovelled 
before  their  maker  and  wrestled,  like  Cotton 
Mather  for  his  stricken  family,  "with  the 
God  of  Jacob  as  did  Jacob  of  old  for  his." 
Connecticut  generally  took  a  saner  view  of 
religious  matters,  and  Rhode  Island  at  New 
port  in  the  eighteenth  century  not  only  vied 
with  the  aristocratic  south  in  wealth,  culture, 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS       87 

and  social  activity,  but  was  reading  for  its 
amusement  the  writings  of  Spenser  and 
Johnson,  Milton  and  Moliere,  at  a  time  when 
Endecott  was  burning  witches  in  Salem  and 
Sewall  was  arranging  the  coffins  in  the  family 
vault  at  Boston  as  "an  awful  but  pleasing 
Christmas  diversion." 

Of  contrasts  in  religious  observance  and 
faith  and  of  education  and  learning  too  much 
can  easily  be  said.  There  can  be  little  doubt, 
however,  that  religious  interests  played  a 
less  conspicuous  part  in  Maryland,  Virginia, 
and  the  Carolinas  in  the  seventeenth  cen-f 
tury  than  they  did  in  New  England,  and  that 
the  standard  of  public  morals  was  less  highly 
maintained.  Indifference  in  the  observance 
of  the  Sabbath,  drunkenness,  and  profanity, 
were  common,  as  is  evident  from  the  frequent 
legal  attempts  made  to  control  them,  and 
temperance  and  prudence  were  virtues  more 
honored  in  the  breach  than  in  the  keeping. 
As  a  rule  the  clergy  in  Virginia  were  esti 
mable  and  devout  men,  but  there  were 
sufficient  instances  of  the  contrary  to  call 
down  upon  the  Virginians  the  charge  of 
loose  living  and  ungodly  conversation  from 
the  stern  Puritan  moralists.  Maryland  and 
North  Carolina  lent  themselves  more  cer 
tainly  to  this  accusation,  and  Dr.  Bray,  who 


88  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

visited  most  of  the  colonies,  gave  in  1700  a 
melancholy  account  of  their  condition  in  his 
letter  to  the  bishops,  showing  a  great  want  of 
ministers  in  Maryland,  and  in  North  Carolina 
an  almost  complete  lack  of  religious  worship, 
except  among  the  Quakers.  In  South  Carolina 
no  provision  for  a  church  was  made  until  after 
1680.  But  with  the  entrance  upon  the  scene  of 
the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel 
in  Foreign  Parts  and  the  work  of  Keith  and  Tal- 
bot,  who  travelled  for  two  years  preaching  in 
every  colony,  a  new  religious  zeal  was  aroused, 
churches  were  founded,  and  proselytes  secured. 
Puritanism  was  passing  out  of  the  earlier 
stage  of  vigor  and  youth  and  its  theology  and 
spirit  were  becoming  hardened  and  stereo 
typed  .  The  ascendancy  of  the  clergy  was 
leading  to  intellectual  and  spiritual  decay 
among  the  people,  and  to  an  overwrought 
condition  of  religious  self-consciousness  that 
was  deadening  to  religious  progress.  In 
truth  with  the  eighteenth  century  New  Eng 
land  and  the  middle  colonies  needed  quite  as 
much  as  did  Virginia  the  reinvigorating 
influence  of  the  Great  Awrakening  of  1740, 
to  restore  the  old  conditions  of  religious 
earnestness  and  enthusiasm  which  had  come 
in  with  the  founders.  If  in  the  one  case  an 
established  church  too  often  bred  fox-hunt- 


POLITICAL  CHARACTERISTICS       89 

ing  parsons,  idle  curates,  and  perfunctory 
church  worshippers,  in  the  other  a  domineering 
body  of  clergy  and  elders  produced  religious 
apathy  and  intellectual  torpor  that  remained 
scarcely  changed  until  the  preaching  of 
Jonathan  Edwards  began  in  1734. 

In  educational  matters  the  differences  are 
more  striking,  for  in  New  England  the  doc 
trine  that  every  community  should  have  its  / 
school  and  schoolmaster  tended  in  time  to 
furnish  a  majority  of  the  people  with  the 
rudiments  of  an  education;  while  in  the  south 
the  want  of  compact  communities  inevitably 
prevented  the  establishment  of  many  free 
schools  and  threw  the  responsibilities  of 
education  upon  each  landed  proprietor.  Vir 
ginia  had  no  public  schools  and  the  planters 
had  to  educate  their  children  either  in  their 
own  homes,  at  private  schools  such  as  that  of 
Symmes  and  Eaton,  or  in  England,  and  in 
consequence  education  inevitably  became  a 
privilege  of  the  wealthier  class.  Even  as 
late  as  1770,  Governor  Bull  could  speak  of  the 
great  lack  of  good  schools  in  South  Carolina. 
The  fact  that  in  the  south  during  the  colonial 
period  education,  whether  at  home  or  in  Eng 
land,  on  the  plantation  or  in  the  private  scheol, 
was  for  the  few  and  not  for  the  many,  has  left 
an  indelible  impress  upon  southern  history. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ECONOMIC   LIFE   AND   INFLUENCE 

MORE  exigent  even  than  constitutional 
systems  and  religious  and  educational  atti 
tudes  was  the  influence  of  topography,  cli 
mate,  and  staple  products  in  determining 
the  direction  that  colonial  development 
should  take.  New  England  had  few  rivers 
and  harbors,  was  broken  by  small  mountain 
chains,  and  offered  no  wide  stretching  acres 
or  single  staple  product  adapted  to  plan 
tation  life.  Virginia  and  Maryland  on  the 
other  hand,  with  their  great  bays  and  rivers, 
veritable  highways  into  the  heart  of  the  col 
onies,  with  arable  lands  stretching  from  river 
to  river  and  lying  adjunct  to  great  bodies  of 
water  like  Chesapeake  Bay,  with  their 
milder  climate  which  led  the  colonists  to 
seek  the  easier  road  to  wealth  and  to  scorn 
the  harder  pursuits  that  a  colder  climate 
encourages,  not  only  became  agricultural, 
but  made  one  form  of  agriculture  their  absorb 
ing  interest.  Before  the  downfall  of  the 
London  Company  tobacco  had  become  the 
only  staple  that  Virginia  exported  to  Eng 
land,  and  though  Maryland  raised  fruit  and 

90 


ECONOMIC  LIFE  AND  INFLUENCE    91 

a  little  grain,  bred  cattle  and  trapped  fur- 
bearing  animals,  her  only  commodity  for 
export  before  1740  was  tobacco,  slightly 
inferior  in  quality  to  that  of  Virginia  be 
cause  the  Marylanders  took  less  pains  with 
the  leaves.  Till  the  middle  of  the  eighteentfi 
century  these  colonies  subordinated  all  crafts 
and  industries  and  all  varieties  of  staple 
products  to  the  one  commodity  that  would 
contribute  most  largely  to  their  material 
welfare,  and  could  be  exchanged  with  the 
mother  country  for  manufactured  goods  at  a 
reasonable  profit.  And  even  to  a  greater 
extent  South  Carolina  with  her  rice  and 
indigo  and  the  West  Indies  with  their  sugar  ^ 
staked  their  prosperity  upon  a  single  com 
modity  and  so  placed  a  severe  handicap 
upon  their  future  development. 

Briefly  stated  the  factors  which  governed 
the  economic  development  of  the  southern, 
midd'e,  and  northern  colonies  and  remained 
persistent  through  the  colonial  era  were 
these.  In  the  southjrom  Maryland  to  South 
Carolina  manufacturing  and  commerce  were 
subordinate  to  agriculture  and  traffic  in 
furs;  the  staple  products  were  carried  in  the 
ships  of  England  or  of  other  colonies,  and 
only  to  a  very  small  extent  in  their  own,  to 
England  or  the  Continent,  and  in  return  the 


92  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

manufactured  goods  of  Europe  were  brought 
in  large  quantities  to  southern  plantations 
to  clothe  the  people  or  to  furnish  their  homes. 
Thus  the  connection  between  these  colonies 
and  the  mother  country,  as  between  the 
West  Indies  and  the  mother  country,  was 
a  very  close  one,  because  the  colonies  fur 
nished  the  tobacco,  sugar,  dye  woods,  indigo, 
rice,  ginger,  and  cotton  that  England  needed 
On  the  other  hand  the  middle  and  north 
ern  colonies  furnished  none  of  these  things. 
They  had  fish  and  furs  for  export  to  England 
and  the  Continent  and  after  much  urging 
|  and  the  granting  of  bounties  they  shipped  a 
small  amount  of  pitch,  tar,  turpentine,  and 
hemp,  with  a  few  masts  for  the  use  of  the 
royal  navy.  But  in  the  main  they  did  not 
come  into  direct  contact  with  England  on 
the  export  side.  The  north£iii_^ndmiddle 
colonies  raised  corn  and  vegetables  and- 
other  farm  products,  they  bred  horses,  cows, 
and  pigs,  they  made  pipe-staves  and  clap 
boards,  and  built  ships,  pinks,  snows,  ketches, 
schooners,  and  sloops,  and  they  sent  all 
these  articles  and  products  off  to  the  other 
colonies  or  to  the  West  Indies.  There  they 
received  money  for  their  venture  or  they 
laid  in  a  stock  of  sugar,  molasses,  and  rum, 
some  of  which  was  consumed  at  home,  some 


: 
; 


ECONOMIC  LIFE  AND  INFLUENCE    93 

sent  to  England  in  exchange  for  manufac 
tured  goods,  or  some,  chiefly  liquor,  they 
sent  to  hearten  the  fishermen  off  the  coast 
of  Newfoundland  or  to  purchase  slaves  in 
Africa  that  were  in  their  turn  sold  to  the 
West  Indies  for  more  sugar  and  molasses, 
and  so  the  triangular  traffic  went  on.  The 
centres  of  this  trade  were  Philadelphia,  New 
York,  Boston,  and  especially  Newport,  the 
slave  emporium  and  one  of  the  greatest 
commercial  centres  of  the  north  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  Hither  British  merchant 
ships  would  come  bringing  those  manufac 
tured  articles  that  the  colonists  might  buy 
with  the  coin  obtained  in  their  traffic  with  the 
West  Indies  and  the  Continent,  and  thither 
an  occasional  New  England  vessel  would  go 
forth  for  a  trip  across  the  ocean  with  a  cargo 
of  West  Indian  commodities,  and  sell  ship 
and  cargo  to  some  English  factor. 

But  the  New  Englanders  were  also  the 
great  masters  of  the  coasting  trade,  pedlers 
at  sea  as  well  as  on  the  land,  doing  a  vast 
usiness  in  comparatively  small  quantities 
and  engaged  in  a  great  number  of  petty 
domestic  exchanges.  More  than  any  others 
among  the  colonists  they  were  the  distrib 
uting  agents  for  the  produce  of  the  entire 
colonial  seaboard,  circulating  staples  from 


94  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

one  end  of  the  coast  to  another.  They  were 
also  fishermen,  catching  their  own  fish  in 
New  England  waters  or  frequenting  the 
harbors  of  Newfoundland,  whence  they 
would  go  forth,  protected  by  British  passes 
from  capture  by  Algerine  pirates,  carrying 
cod,  pilchards,  salmon,  herring,  and  "poor- 
jack"  to  Lisbon  and  cities  of  the  Mediter 
ranean,  and  return  laden  with  European 
goods  by  way  of  England  to  America,  or  as 
was  not  infrequently  the  case  directly  to 
America,  thus  violating  the  navigation  act 
of  1663. 

From  this  brief  statement  it  will  appear 
that  commerce  in  the  north  differed  vitally 
from  that  of  the  south.  The  northern  cities 
became  great  business  communities,  with 
business  houses  and  prominent  business 
families,  such  as  the  houses  of  Hull  and  Fan- 
euil  in  Boston,  the  Browns,  Wantons,  Free- 
bodys,  and  Malbones  of  Newport,  the  De 
Lanceys,  Rip  van  Dams,  and  Millses  of  New 
York,  the  Logans,  Bohlens,  McMurtries, 
Morrisses,  and  Willings  of  Philadelphia. 
With  their  docks  and  shipyards,  their  corres 
pondence  with  agents  in  all  parts  of  the  world, 
their  warehouses  and  their  offices,  these 
cities  became  emporia  of  trade,  of  intellec 
tual  activity,  and  scientific  ingenuity.  On 


ECONOMIC  LIFE  AND  INFLUENCE    95 

the  other  hand  in  the  south  a  strong  trading 
class  never  came  into  existence;  the  planter 
and  the  plantation  was  the  seat  of  business, 
the  bay  and  the  river  was  the  highway  to 
the  private  wharf  where  was  stored  the  butt, 
cask,  and  hogshead  that  contained  all  tobacco 
not  shipped  in  bulk.  To  this  wharf,  some 
times  at  the  planter's  front  door  and  some 
times,  especially  in  Virginia,  many  miles 
away  from  where  the  tobacco  was  raised, 
came  the  vessels  twice  a  year  from  England 
bringing  foreign  goods,  letters,  and  papers  to 
the  family  on  the  great  plantation,  the  wealth 
of  which  lay  in  its  wide  acres  and  the  pros 
perity  of  which  was  dependent  on  the  rise 
and  fall  of  tobacco.  Thus  Maryland,  Vir 
ginia,  South  Carolina,  and  the  West  Indies 
had  no  trading  and  artisan  class,  no  supply 
of  native  grown  food-stuffs,  no  diversity  of 
colonial  interests.  They  never  developed 
the  trading  city,  which  in  the  northern  col 
onies  was  the  abode  of  the  merchant  and  the 
artisan,  whose  influence  was  to  affect  the 
history  of  the  nation  long  after  the  southern 
planter  as  an  economic  factor  had  passed 
away. 

The  significance  of  these  contrasting  con 
ditions  lies  not  only  in  the  fact  that  the 
south  remained  a  land  of  agriculture  to  the 


96  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

end  of  the  colonial  era,  but  also  in  the  further 
fact,  that  when  in  the  middle  and  northern 
colonies  the  wealth  derived  from  commerce 
began  to  be  supplanted  by  the  wealth  derived 
from  manufacturing,  the  conditions  were 
eminently  favorable  for  a  rapid  extension  of 
the  shop  and  the  factory.  The  south,  even 
in  her  one  city,  Charleston,  where  the  shop 
keepers  were  foreigners  and  all  banking, 
loans,  and  exchanges  were  in  the  hands  of 
outsiders,  never  entered  the  stage  of  a  wide 
and  expanding  industrial  and  manufacturing 
life.  Even  in  the  north  during  the  colonial 
era  manufacturing  scarcely  passed  beyond 
the  domestic  stage,  in  which  the  colonists 
made  their  cheaper  clothing,  hammered  out 
their  own  nails,  and  provided  the  necessary 
conveniences  for  comfortable  living,  never 
theless  conditions  there  were  favorable  for 
the  industrial  revolution  when  the  time 
came  —  when,  for  example,  after  1793  New 
port,  without  wrater  power  in  the  days  before 
the  age  of  steam,  gave  way  to  Providence, 
the  centre  of  a  new  economic  life,  in  which 
the  factory  took  the  place  of  the  sailing  vessel 
as  the  leading  source  of  wealth.  The  in 
stinct  to  manufacture  was  alike  inborn  and 
developed  in  the  New  Englander,  and  though 
he  never  produced  in  colonial  times  anything 


ECONOMIC  LIFE  AND  INFLUENCE    97 

that  could  be  exported  or  could  in  any  way 
come  into  competition  with  the  manufac 
tures  of  old  England,  the  genius  and  the  tem 
per  ament,  the  town  and  the  city  were  there. 
The  real  significance  of  these  distinctions 
was  to  be  seen  after  the  Revolution  in  the 
famous  controversies  of  the  manufacturing 
north  with  the  agricultural  south  over  the 
adoption  of  tariff  legislation. 

These  fundamental  differences  in  polit 
ical  organization  and  economic  life  carried 
with  them  countless  other  distinctions  in 
the  social  order.  The  fact  that  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  colonial  period  all  the  col 
onies  outside  of  New  England  were  royal  or 
proprietary  colonies,  in  which  a  majority 
of  the  officials  were  appointees  of  the  king 
or  of  the  proprietary,  created  a  social  caste 
that  often  looked  to  England  for  its  models^ 
and  standards  of  social  conduct.  Governors, 
lieutenant  governors,  councillors,  secretaries, 
attorneys  general,  chief  justices,  and  others, 
appointed  under  the  great  seal  of  England, 
the  royal  sign-manual,  or  the  seal  of  the 
province,  looked  to  England  for  their  au 
thority  and  in  some  cases  for  their  pay,  and 
formed  a  party  distinct  from  and  above  the 
people  as  a  whole.  The  governors,  more 
frequently  sent  from  England  than  selected 


98  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

from  among  the  men  of  the  colony,  brought 
in  social  habits  and  customs,  dress  and  fur 
nishings  that  were  rather  English  than  col 
onial,  and,  inasmuch  as  many  of  these  men 
were  profligate  and  corrupt,  life  at  the  gov 
ernor's  court  became  extravagant  and  politics 
often  smacked  of  graft  and  plunder.  The 
officials  in  the  royal  colonies,  the  only  colo 
nies  directly  under  the  eye  of  the  home  gov 
ernment,  formed  a  large  and  influential 
body  of  comptrollers,  surveyors,  naval  offi 
cers,  and  officers  of  admiralty  sworn  to 
perform  their  duties  as  they  ought  to  per 
form  them  in  the  interest  of  the  government 
in  England.  Inasmuch  as  there  were  few 
such  officials  in  New  England,  and  only  in 
Massachusetts  after  1691  and  New  Hamp 
shire  after  1678  were  there  any  regular  ap 
pointees  of  the  crown,  except  an  occasional 
custom  official,  it  was  inevitable  that  the 
social  conditions  there  should  differ  widely 
from  those  in  the  south,  and  that  the  close 
union  that  existed  between  the  governors  and 
the  governed,  particularly  in  Connecticut 
and  Rhode  Island,  should  give  greater  social 
compactness  to  life  in  New  England.  In 
the  southern  and  middle  colonies,  to  a  greater 
extent  than  in  the  north,  the  people  were 
constantly  recruited  from  the  immigrant 


ECONOMIC  LIFE  AND  INFLUENCE    99 

Huguenot,  German,  Swiss,  and  Scots-Irish, 
of  the  latter  of  whom  only  one  in  five  went 
to  New  England,  and  the  lower  classes  were 
increased  by  great  numbers  of  indented 
servants,  paupers,  and  transported  crim 
inals.  Though  the  stigma  of  criminality  was 
less  conspicuous  then  than  it  is  now  —  for 
many  of  the  "King's  Prisoners,"  as  they  were 
called,  were  transported  for  petty  thefts 
and  other  trivial  causes, —  though  many  "  crim 
inals"  were  skilled  mechanics  welcome  to 
the  colonies,  and  though  Pennsylvania,  Mary 
land,  and  Virginia  endeavored  by  legislation 
to  keep  out  the  worst  offenders,  nevertheless 
such  systematic  immigration,  continuing 
through  the  colonial  period,  tended  to  make 
class  distinctions  conspicuous  and  permanent. 
Furthermore  in  the  south  the  ready  means 
of  communication  with  England,  the  pres 
ence  in  London  and  other  British  ports  of 
agents  and  correspondents  with  whom  the 
southern  planter  kept  a  standing  financial 
account,  for  tobacco  was  rarely  paid  for  in 
actual  coin,  made  it  easy  for  the  same 
planter  to  visit  England,  to  send  over  his 
sons  to  be  educated  or  to  be  trained  as  law 
yers,  or  his  daughters  to  enjoy  the  society 
of  the  great  British  metropolis.  All  returned, 
ripened  by  their  experiences  abroad,  bringing 


100          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

back  the  modish  fashions  of  the  time  — 
stocking  or  shoe  buckle,  periwig,  purple 
coat  or  buff  waistcoat  or  flowered  silk  gown, 
adding  grace  and  charm  to  the  manners 
learned  in  the  older  world.  Thus  equipped, 
forming  an  aristocracy  of  manners  as  well  as 
of  birth,  the  inhabitants  of  the  coast  region 
sought  to  control  politics  as  well  as  fashion. 
Notably  in  Virginia  and  South  Carolina 
political  progress  was  marked  by  a  series  of 
contests  between  the  older  and  newer  sec 
tions  of  the  country.  Prom  the  beginning 
of  our  history  the  struggle  between  the 
conservatism  of  the  settled  areas  and  the 
democracy  of  the  frontier  has  been  a  factor 
of  tremendous  significance,  and  in  its  widest 
influence  has  been  characteristic  of  New 
England  as  well  as  the  south.  In  Virginia 
Governor  Berkeley  and  his  court  met  the  first 
attack  in  Bacon's  rebellion  and  were  worsted; 
in  the  next  century,  when  Scots-Irish  and 
Germans  had  crept  down  from  western 
Pennsylvania,  the  struggle  was  renewed  and 
prolonged  until  the  Revolution,  wiien  new 
leaders,  Patrick  Henry,  Jefferson,  and  Madi 
son,  in  large  measure  forced  the  issue  with 
England  against  the  contentment  and  con 
servatism  of  the  commercial  class.  In  South 
Carolina,  that  colony  of  a  single  town,  the 


ECONOMIC  LIFE  AND  lN7Lr;E'NCE    101 

aristocracy,  settled  in  the  city  of  Charleston, 
endeavored  to  guard  by  every  means  in  its 
power  the  politics  of  the  colony  against  the 
encroachments  of  the  dwellers  in  the  back- 
country,  who  were  mainly  Scots-Irish;  The 
power  of  the  Anglican  church  in  the  south 
was  used  to  strengthen  the  hold  of  the  aris 
tocratic  party  on  government,  while  the 
presence  of  the  English  parish  system  as  the 
only  form  of  local  organization  was  a  force 
influencing  local  elections. 

Thus  throughout  the  entire  colonial  era 
the  southern  colonies  showed  greater  traces 
of  sectional  and  class  distinctions  —  be 
tween  royal  officials,  the  church,  and  the 
aristocracy  on  one  side  and  the  poor  farmer, 
the  servant,  and  the  negro  on  the  other,  and 
between  the  older  or  tide-water  section  on 
one  side  and  the  newly  settled  back-country 
on  the  other.  The  gaiety  of  the  life  which 
centred  in  the  governor's  court  or  in  the 
household  of  the  rich  planter  was  English 
in  its  exuberance,  its  fashion,  its  scorn  of 
manual  labor,  and  stood  in  striking  contrast 
with  the  upland  regions  where  frontier  con 
ditions  and  frontier  habits  of  thought  and 
dress  prevailed. 

The  Scots-Irish,  who  formed  the  second 
most  important  element  composing  the  popu- 


103        -THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

lation  at  the  end  of  the  colonial  period,  had 
little  in  common  with  the  Anglican  of  the 
coast.  He  was  compacted  of  the  sternness 
of  the  Covenanter  with  the  wit  and  humor 
of  the  Irish  and  cared  little  for  culture,  or 
knowledge,  or  beauty;  he  was  energetic, 
resourceful,  and  enduring,  conspicuous  in 
adventure  and  brave  in  war.  Tenacious  in 
his  theological  views,  he  was  equally  stubborn 
in  his  adherence  to  political  dogmas,  and 
whether  it  was  the  wilderness  or  the  cate 
chism  or  the  government  that  opposed  him, 
he  fought  with  the  same  determination 
against  all.  He  was  strongest  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  where  he  opposed  the  rule  of  the 
Quakers  and  combined  with  the  Germans  to 
effect  their  overthrow;  but  he  was  also 
strong  in  the  upland  valleys  of  Virginia  and 
the  south,  where  he  struggled  with  the 
Indians  and  the  hardships  of  settlement  on 
one  side  and  the  property  holders  of  the  coast 
and  their  class  legislation  on  the  other,  en 
deavoring  to  gain  fair  treatment  and  justice 
from  the  privileged  and  moneyed  element 
that  controlled  the  government.  To  a  cer 
tain  extent  similar  struggles  went  on  in  Massa 
chusetts  and  New  York,  but  nowhere  were 
the  differences  so  marked,  the  rivalries  so 
intense,  the  distinctions  between  rich  and 


ECONOMIC  LIFE  AND  INFLUENCE    103 

poor  so  well  defined  as  in  the  colonies  south 
of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  The  first  great 
sectional  contest  in  America  lay  between  the 
individualistic  and  democratic  frontier  and 
the  old  tide-water  settlement,  where  lived 
and  ruled  the  royal  officials  and  the  men  of 
property,  who  in  the  greater  number  of 
instances  were  bound  by  ties  of  interest  and 
affection  to  the  mother  country. 

On  the  other  hand  the  patriarchal  organi 
zation  of  southern  society,  the  glimpses  of 
the  larger  world  frequently  obtained  by  the 
planter  and  his  children,  and  the  many  argu 
ments  over  government  arising  from  the 
controversies  between  the  royal  officials  and 
the  delegates  of  the  people,  gave  rise  in  this 
same  aristocratic  class  to  men  of  remarka 
ble  character  and  ability.  Some  of  the 
strongest  of  our  early  political  leaders  learned 
their  first  lessons  in  the  law  trials  at  the 
county  court-house  and  in  the  assembly  de 
fending  the  claims  of  the  popular  assembly. 
Supported  by  the  labor  of  others,  looking 
down  upon  the  trade  and  industry  which 
was  deemed  so  honorable  an  occupation  in 
the  north,  and  finding  their  inspiration  in 
the  speeches  of  English  lawyers  and  parlia 
mentary  leaders,  many  a  southern  planter 
became  a  statesman  of  great  oratorical  power 


104 


104  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

and   personal   charm.      In   this   respect   the 
leisure  of  the  southerner  stands  in  striking 
contrast  with  the  enterprise  and  energy  of 
the  merchants  and  traders  of  the  northern 
colonies,  who  as  busy  men  were  less  ready  to 
give  their  time  to  political  speech  making,  and 
as  capitalists  were  averse  to  provoking  dis 
order  and  confusion.     The  southern  gentle 
man,  less  concerned  as  he  was  with  the  petty 
/^  politics  of  village  and  town,  was  more  inter 
ested    in    the    larger    aspects    of    England's 
imperial  legislation,  and  suffering  but  little 
from  the  effects  of  her  mercantile  and  com 
mercial  policy  was  willing  and  able  to  take 
a  larger  view  of  political  questions  and  to 
appeal  to  the  precedents  of  the  past  as  argu 
ments  in  favor  of  the  preservation  of  things 
as  they  were.     Though  education  was  less 
widely  spread  in  the  south  than  in  the  north, 
the  few  were  better  educated,  more  widely 
read,   and  possessed  of  a  higher  degree  of 
cultured  intelligence  than  were  the  majority 
of   those    who   received    a   grammar   school 
education    in    the    New    England     towns. 
Throughout  the  New  England  colonies  igno 
rance  of  the  mother  country,  of  her  policy, 
government,   and   empire  was  widely  prev- 
[:alent,  and  as  a  result  the  men  of  the  New 
Jngland  town  were  often  then,  as  they  have 


ECONOMIC  LIFE  AND  INFLUENCE    10$ 

been  since,  narrow  in  sympathy,  local  in 
interest,  and  parochially  minded  when  large 
issues  were  at  stake. 

Thus  stood  the  colonies  from  Maryland 
southward  in  contrast  with  the  energetic, 
busy,  self-centred  population  of  the  north. 
As  all  the  colonies  became  older  and  the 
people  were  transformed  from  Englishmen 
into  Americans  many  of  the  differences 
inevitably  tended  to  disappear.  Feudal 
practices  gradually  passed  away  and,  except 
in  a  few  matters  of  land  tenure,  the  few 
lingering  traces  of  feudalism  were  effectually 
removed  when  the  constitutions  of  the  revolu 
tionary  period  were  drafted.  More  important 
still,  differences  in  forms  of  government 
became  less  and  less  striking,  as  in  the  long 
political  struggle  in  the  royal  colonies  between 
the  executive,  represented  by  the  governor, 
and  the  legislative  power,  represented  by  the 
popular  assemblies,  the  governors  and  coun 
cils  were  shorn  of  much  of  their  authority, 
and  in  actual  government  the  southern 
colonies  approached  the  type  presented  in 
New  England.  The  real  difference  between 
the  north  and  the  south  in  colonial  times 
lay  not  in  politics,  law,  religion,  education, 
in  manners,  customs,  or  mental  attitudes. 
It  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  south- 


106  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

ern  colonies  from  the  beginning  to  the  end 
of  the  colonial  period  represented  a  purely 
agricultural  form  of  life  without  towns,  trad 
ing  communities,  variety  of  industrial  inter 
ests  and  competition,  and  consequently 
without  that  ingenuity  and  scientific  skill 
which  is  essential  to  the  spread  of  democratic 
ideas  and  the  increase  of  wealth. 


CHAPTER  V 

j 

THE  NAVIGATION  ACTS  AND  PUITIDH  CONTROL 

THE  United  States  of  America  is  the  only 
one  of  the  great  powers  of  the  world  to  be  a 
colonial  dependency  during  its  earlier  years. 
From  1607  to  1783  the  people  of  this  country 
were  the  subjects  of  Great  Britain.  Impor 
tant,  therefore,  as  were  the  life  and  institu 
tions  of  the  colonies  themselves  in  preparing 
the  way  for  the  growth  of  the  great  demo 
cratic  republic,  of  equal  importance  were  the 
administration  and  policy  of  the  mother 
country  in  her  management  of  them.  To 
tell  the  story  of  the  colonies,  and  not  to  tell 
the  story  of  the  sovereign  power  that  con 
trolled  them,  is  to  leave  our  tale  shamefully 
incomplete.  Only  in  the  study  of  that  policy 
can  we  find  the  explanation  of  the  American 
Revolution,  whereby  England's  colonies  be 
came  independent  states  and  an  independent 
American  nation  was  born. 

In  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen 
tury  the  modern  notion  of  a  self-governing 
colony  had  not  been  conceived.  No  clear 
idea  of  colonies  as  colonies  apart  from  their 
value  to  the  mother  country  had  ever 

107 


108          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

entered  the  minds  of  British  statesmen  in 
the  seventeenth  century,   and  even  to  the 
end  of  the  colonial  era  Englishmen  looked  on 
the  colonies  as  plantations  to  be  adminis 
tered  for  the  benefit  of  the  mother  country. 
It  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  instructions 
for  the  management  of  trade  and  plantations 
issued  in  1782,  after  the  American  colonies 
had  all  but  won  their  independence,  are  word 
for  word  the  same  as  those  drafted  in  1696, 
eighty-seven   years  before.     As   in  principle 
and  purpose  the  instructions  of  1696  are  the 
same  as  those  of  1670  and  1672,  we  can  say 
that  for  more  than  a  century,  through  periods 
of  constitutional  change  and  imperial  expan 
sion,  religious  upheaval  and  colonial  revolt, 
the    official    declaration    of    policy    toward 
trade  and  foreign  plantations  remained  unal 
tered    in    a    single    particular.      Whatever 
changes  might  be  effected  in  the  details  of 
administration,    whatever    rules    might    be 
laid  down  by  one  department  or  another  of 
the  British  government  to  meet  special  con 
ditions  or  emergencies,  and  however  much 
individuals  might  find  fault  with  the  system  of 
management  at  Whitehall,  the  fact  remains 
that  during  our  colonial  period  England's  idea 
of  the  place  of  the  colonies  in  the  British 
system  was  unchanged  and  unchangeable. 


THE  NAVIGATION  ACTS  109 

The  reason  for  this  is  not  far  to  seek. 
Though  the  colonies  were  on  royal  soil  the 
king  had  done  nothing  to  promote  them, 
having  never  started  a  single  movement  for 
the  establishment  of  a  colony  on  his  western 
frontier.  He  gave  legal  sanction  to  private 
enterprises  and  took  under  his  immediate 
protection  colonies  that  had  been  founded 
through  the  efforts  and  at  the  expense  of 
corporations  and  proprietors;  but  he  did 
nothing  on  his  own  account,  partly  because 
of  inadequate  resources,  and  partly  because 
he  and  his  advisers  viewed  distant  planta 
tions  as  only  factors  in  promoting  trade 
and  finance  and  therefore  to  be  left  to  private 
initiative.  Though  the  state  might  regulate 
trade  by  laying  down  the  rules  to  be  followed, 
it  did  not  look  upon  trade  as  a  government 
undertaking.  From  this  it  follows  that 
England's  colonial  policy,  instead  of  being  a 
broad  statesmanlike  policy  with  the  interest 
of  the  colonies  at  heart,  was  a  narrow  mer 
cantile  or  commercial  policy  with  the  interests 
of  the  mother  country  at  heart.  Through 
out  the  period  from  1660  to  1783  trade  was 
in  the  ascendancy,  and  England's  leading 
men  viewed  these  far-off  territories  from  the 
standpoint  of  trade  and  profit.  The  colonies 
were  to  be  treated  as  sources  of  supply,  and 


110          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

those  that  furnished  the  largest  part  of  the 
commodities  that  England  needed  were  the 
most  important  in  their  eyes. 

It  was  a  cardinal  principle  of  England's 
merchants  and  financiers  that  the  kingdom 
should  have  more  sellers  than  buyers,  be 
cause  selling  meant  that  other  nations  were 
dependent  on  England  for  their  supply, 
while  buying  meant  that  England  was  de 
pendent  on  other  nations,  a  situation  that 
statesmen  and  merchants  were  exceedingly 
anxious  to  avoid.  They  discovered  very 
early  where  lay  the  commercial  weaknesses 
of  the  kingdom  and  looked  to  the  colonies 
to  supply  its  deficiencies.  They  encouraged 
the  search  for  gold,  silver,  and  copper, 
whether  in  mines  or  wrecks,  because  they  had 
no  mines  at  home;  they  urged  the  colonists 
*  to  plant  vines  to  relieve  them  from  depend 
ence  on  the  wines  of  France,  to  raise  spices 
and  tropical  fruits  to  relieve  them  from 
dependence  on  the  Dutch  and  Portuguese 
who  controlled  the  eastern  trade,  to  catch 
fish  in  Newfoundland  and  New  England 
waters  to  relieve  them  from  dependence  on 
the  superior  herring  fleets  of  Holland,  to 
produce  naval  stores  to  relieve  them  from 
dependence  on  the  Scandinavian  and  Baltic 
provinces.  The  capitalists  and  promoters 


THE  NAVIGATION  ACTS          111 

of  the  seventeenth  and  even  of  the  eighteenth 
centuries  saw  in  the  forest  lands  of  America 
endless  supplies  of  potash  for  their  glass, 
soap,  and  woolen  manufactures,  of  salt 
petre  for  their  gunpowder,  and  of  tar,  pitch, 
turpentine,  and  hemp  for  the  rigging  and 
calking  of  their  ships.  They  dreamed  of  the 
West  Indies  and  Florida  as  a  botanical  gar 
den  where  could  be  raised  the  spices,  drugs, 
and  fruits  of  the  east.  Ginger,  cloves,  pepper, 
nutmegs,  cinnamon,  and  other  spices;  jalap, 
balsam,  licorice,  castor  oil,  and  other  drugs; 
madder,  indigo,  senna,  and  such  dye  woods 
as  fustic,  logwood,  and  braziletto;  pome 
granates,  figs,  oranges,  lemons,  and  other 
fruits;  rice,  cotton,  and  sugar  —  these  were 
the  staples  that  England  could  not  produce 
at  home  and  these  with  cocoa  were  the  com 
modities  that  to  the  English  merchant  and 
the  English  epicure  —  craving  variety  and 
novelty  in  the  food  supply  —  were  becoming 
a  necessity  at  this  time.  Could  these  products 
be  obtained  from  England's  own  colonies  by  a 
system  of  half  profits,  a  practice  early  tried 
but  always  without  success,  or  by  exchange 
with  her  own  manufactured  articles,  it  would 
save  much  good  coin  to  the  realm  and  would 
add  to  the  royal  exchequer  —  never  too  full 
under  the  Stuart  regime  —  a  welcome  sum  in 
customs  receipts  and  excise  duties. 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

This  was  the  origin  of  England's  policy 
and  this  was  the  end  toward  which  all 
British  control  was  directed.  Certainly  not 
at  first  and  certainly  not  at  all  as  a  primary 
motive  were  colonies  to  be  fostered  as  centres 
of  an  independent  political  and  economic 
life,  bound  to  the  home  government  only  by 
ties  of  loyalty  and  affection.  Plantations 
they  were,  not  colonies,  and  plantations  they 
remained  to  the  end  of  the  era.  As  such 
they  would  be  aided  and  protected;  as 
they  grew  stronger  they  would  have  addi 
tional  opportunities  and  privileges,  but  under 
no  circumstances,  were  they  to  fail  in  their 
first  duty  of  contributing  to  the  support  of 
the  mother  country  in  the  way  that  her 
statesmen  might  direct.  The  colonies  must 
engage  in  such  form  of  commercial  and 
industrial  activity  as  would  be  advanta 
geous,  not  to  themselves,  but  to  the  common 
country,  they  must  engage  in  no  enterprise, 
manufacturing  or  other,  that  would  injure 
England's  interests,  they  must  send  their 
products  to  England  only,  the  vent  and  staple 
of  all  colonial  wares,  and  they  must  buy 
what  they  needed  to  buy  of  England  only  or 
through  her  as  an  intermediary. 

In  one  respect  at  least  the  practice  never 
coincided  with  the  theory.  The  southern 


THE  NAVIGATION  ACTS  113 

and  West  Indian  colonies  never  did  fulfil  that 
wonderful  dream  of  a  tropical  east  grafted 
onto  a  tropical  west  that  influenced  plan 
tation  councils  and  merchants  during  the 
seventeenth  centuries.  Fruits,  drugs,  and 
spices,  silk,  flax,  and  hemp  never  formed 
any  considerable  ^^n  in  the  colonial  trade 
of  that  day.  Sugd^ginger,  rice,  indigo,  and 
dyewoods  were  suppled  in  varying  quanti 
ties,  but  greater  thanl  these  was  the  staple 
product  that  at  the  beginning  won  out  against 
all  comers.  Tobacco,  that  "scurvy  weed," 
as  the  Old  Providence  Company  called  it, 
became  the  leading  colonial  product,  and 
though  other  staples  came  in  later  to  com 
pete  with  it,  none  could  surpass  it,  except 
possibly  sugar,  and  no  effort  of  home  govern 
ment  or  private  company  could  check  its 
rapid  increase.  Though  men  of  the  time 
deemed  its  use  a  hygienic  and  moral  evil, 
though  they  condemned  tobacco  smoking 
as  a  form  of  debauchery  as  debasing  as 
drunkenness  and  opium  smoking  are  deemed 
today,  tobacco  proved  to  be  the  only  con 
tinental  American  staple  that  brought  in  to 
planter,  merchant,  and  customs  officer  any 
adequate  return.  During  the  seventeenth 
century  Virginia,  Maryland,  Bermuda,  Old 
Providence,  St.  Christopher  and  other  Lee- 


114  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

ward  Islands,  and  Guiana  all  produced 
tobacco,  and  in  the  end  company,  proprietor, 
and  home  government  bowed  before  its 
supremacy.  The  prosperity  of  the  early 
colonies  was  built  upon  smoke. 

The  tobacco  trade  began  the  shaping  of 
English  policy  and  determined  the  direc 
tion  that  her  interests  Tffiould  take.  Before 
parliament  had  placed  the  subject  on  the 
broader  foundation  of  a  statute,  the  Privy 
Council,  as  early  as  1621,  had  issued  its 
orders  compelling  the  colonists  of  Virginia 
T  to  send  all  their  tobacco  to  England  and 
forbidding  all  foreigners  to  trade  with  the 
colonies.  In  the  commercial  rivalry  with 
the  Dutch  that  followed,  the  Rump  Parlia 
ment  under  the  Commonwealth  passed  an 
ordinance  in  1651,  requiring  that  such  trade 
should  not  only  be  confined  to  England  but 
should  be  carried  only  in  ships  owned  by 
English  people  or  by  the  colonists,  and 
manned  by  English  masters  with  a  crew, 
three  quarters  of  which  at  least  should  be 
English.  The  act  was  not  thoroughly  en 
forced  and  the  Dutch  continued  to  trade 
with  the  colonies,  in  spite  of  it,  until,  after 
the  Restoration,  the  feeling  in  England 
became  so  strong  as  to  demand  the  embodi 
ment  of  these  principles  in  acts  of  parlia- 


THE  NAVIGATION  ACTS  115 

ment.  Consequently,  three  great  acts  were 
passed  in  1660,  1663,  1672,  which  repeated 
the  former  commands  and  added  to  them. 
England's  commerce  must  be  carried  in 
England's  ships,  though  foreign  built  ships 
might  be  used.  Even  this  exception  was 
withdrawn  in  1662/  and  Ireland,  which  was 
included  at  first  within  the  privileges  of  the 
act,  was  debarred  in  1670.  In  the  act  of 
1660  the  former  orders  of  the  Privy  Council 
regarding  the  bringing  of  tobacco  to  England 
only  were  given  a  wide  extension,  and  sugar, 
cotton,  indigo,  ginger,  and  dyewoods,  and 
later  rice,  molasses,  beaver  skins,  cocoa, 
copper,  and  naval  stores,  were  barred 
entirely  from  the  foreign  market.  When  in 
the  operation  of  the  act  it  was  found  that  the 
colonists  were  carrying  these  commodities 
from  one  colonial  port  to  another  and  then, 
deeming  the  law  fulfilled,  were  sailing  with 
them  directly  to  Europe,  the  act  of  1672 
was  passed.  This  act  required  that  a  duty, 
apparently  equal  to  that  imposed  at  the 
time  in  England,  should  be  paid  at  the  colo 
nial  port  of  entry,  in  case  the  ship  captain 
would  not  bind  himself  by  certificate  to 
carry  the  commodities  to  England.  When  in 
1696  the  matter  was  taken  up  again  the  stat 
ute  declared  that  even  if  the  duty  were  paid 


116          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

in  the  colony  the  commodity  if  reshipped  must 
be  taken  to  England  anyway,  and  from  there 
if  desired  transshipped  to  the  Continent.  This 
payment  of  a  British  customs  duty  in  the  colo 
nies  gave  rise  to  the  "plantation  duty"  and 
to  the  establishment  of  a  corps  of  collectors 
who  received  it  and  transmitted  it  to  England. 
The  acts  thus  far  defined  favored  New 
England  as  against  the  other  colonies, 
because  the  enumerated  commodities  were 
nearly  all  of  exclusive  southern  or  West 
Indian  growth.  But  in  1663  an  act  was 
passed  touching  a  new  aspect  of  the  case 
and  affecting  New  England  as  well  as  the 
others.  This  act  declared  that  all  commod 
ities  imported  into  the  colonies  from  the 
Continent  should  be  brought  to  England 
before  shipment  to  America.  This  meant 
that  all  imported  articles  which  the  colonies 
used  must  come  from  England,  even  though 
such  articles  might  be  of  foreign  manufac 
ture.  A  few  exceptions  were  allowed,  such  as 
salt  and  "victual,"  and  wines  from  Madeira 
and  the  Azores,  which  were  used  in  the 
colonies  before  they  were  used  in  England, 
but  the  exceptions  were  comparatively  tri 
fling.  The  ships  were,  of  course,  to  be  English 
built,  and  three-fourths  of  the  mariners 
English  subjects.  The  captain  on  arriving  in 


THE  NAVIGATION  ACTS  117 

a  colonial  port  must  register  his  name,  the 
ship's  name,  cargo,  tonnage,  and  other 
details,  with  a  person  properly  appointed  to 
receive  them,  a  requirement  that  brought 
into  existence  the  naval  officer,  the  first  of 
whom  seems  to  have  been  appointed  for 
Jamaica  in  1676. 

By  these  acts  the  commercial  policy  of 
England  was  formally  defined  by  statute, 
but  for  the  first  thirty  years  the  laws  were 
not  strictly  obeyed.  Licenses  were  issued, 
particularly  to  the  ships  of  Scotland,  which 
kingdom,  with  Ireland  and  the  Isle  of  Man, 
lay  outside  the  privileged  area  and  was  for 
bidden  to  trade  directly  with  the  colonies. 
In  1665  an  order  in  council  allowed  the  use 
of  foreign  built  ships  manned  by  seamen 
of  any  nation  in  amity  with  England,  and 
this  order  remained  in  force  until  1668.  The 
law  was  entirely  dispensed  with  during  the 
war  with  the  Dutch  in  1672.  At  other  times, 
however,  it  was  ordered  to  be  strictly  en 
forced,  and  in  consequence  complaints  poured 
in,  particularly  from  Barbadoes,  Virginia,  and 
New  England,  and  the  general  charge  was 
made  that  the  acts  of  trade  were  seriously 
injuring  the  commerce  of  the  plantations. 
Breaches  of  the  acts  were  committed  in  the 
West  Indies,  New  York,  and  New  England, 


118          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

particularly  in  connection  with  the  Irish 
and  Scottish  trade,  and  the  rumors  on  this 
point  became  so  definite  that  in  1675  the 
king  issued  a  vigorous  proclamation,  com 
manding  the  enforcement  of  the  laws  and 
calling  on  colonial  governors  to  see  that  the 
proclamation  was  executed.  But  the  effect 
was  slight.  Massachusetts  with  consistent 
disregard  of  the  royal  orders  continued  to 
trade  freely  where  she  liked,  until,  with  the 
arrival  of  Edward  Randolph  as  surveyor  of 
customs  in  1676,  the  evidence  to  this  effect 
became  so  overwhelming  that  the  colony 
lost  its  charter  in  1684. 

So  lax  did  the  whole  system  of  adminis 
tration  become  that  finally  in  1696  a  new  act 
was  passed,  designed  to  make  more  efficient 
the  machinery  of  control.  Colonial  govern 
ors  were  reminded  of  their  duty  in  no  un 
certain  terms  and  mandatory  instructions 
were  sent  to  America.  The  powers  of  col 
lectors  and  surveyors  were  precisely  stated, 
and  their  appointment  and  supervision  were 
taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the  colonies  and 
given  to  the  Treasury  and  commissioners 
of  customs  in  England.  Naval  officers,  at 
first  appointed  by  the  governors,  were  made 
responsible  to  the  British  custom  board, 
and  were  eventually  appointed  by  the  crown. 


I 

THE  NAVIGATION  ACTS  119 

And  finally,  the  colonies  were  strictly  en 
joined  to  pass  no  laws  contrary  to  the  act. 
As  a  corollary  to  the  act,  a  few  years  later, 
vice-admiralty  courts  were  erected  in  the 
colonies  to  try  cases  of  illegal  trading,  and 
the  number  of  officials  directly  concerned 
with  the  enforcement  of  the  acts  in  America 
steadily  increased.  Thus  at  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century  England  had  stated  in  a 
clear  and  forcible  manner  her  determination 
to  confine  the  trade  of  the  colonies  within 
the  bonds  of  her  commercial  system. 

Supplemental  to  these  regulations  regard 
ing  trade  were  the  acts  passed  forbidding 
the  colonists  to  indulge  in  any  form  of  man 
ufacturing,  partly  so  as  not  to  decrease  the 
amount  of  raw  materials  produced  in  Amer-1" 
ica,  and  partly  to  prevent  any  form  of  colo 
nial  competition  with  the  manufacturing 
interests  at  home.  England  would  supply 
the  colonists  with  manufactured  goods, 
either  from  her  own  supply  or  from  the  Con 
tinent  through  her  own  ports.  This  prohi 
bition  was  a  well  understood  matter  in  Amer 
ica.  Men  talked  about  it  and  on  occasion 
could  use  the  threat  of  manufacturing  as  an 
argument  against  some  of  England's  demands. 
Governors  and  others  watched  for  indica 
tions  and  reported  suspicious  movements 


120          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

promptly,  and  parliament  at  sundry  times, 
stirred  by  the  manufacturers  in  England, 
passed  acts  —  formal  statutes  —  forbidding 
the  manufacture  of  woollens,  hats,  and  iron 
and  steel  wares  in  America.  In  1733  it 
passed  a  Molasses  Act  to  compel  the  New 
Englanders  and  others  to  buy  their  molasses, 
sugar,  and  rum  of  British  instead  of  foreign 
colonies  in  the  West  Indies.  But  before 
1764  all  these  acts  were  trifling  as  compared 
with  the  navigation  acts.  The  south  had  no 
manufactures,  New  England  none  for  export, 
and  the  act  of  1733  was  consistently  violated. 
As  England  had  only  a  commercial  and 
not  a  colonial  policy  it  was  inevitable  that 
she  should  develop  no  system  of  adminis 
tration  that  had  other  than  a  commercial 
aspect.  With  a  skill  characteristically  British 
she  made  use  of  the  existing  machinery  of 
government  to  carry  out  her  program.  She 
introduced  no  strictly  new  features,  being 
content  to  adapt,  and  in  some  cases  to  en 
large,  those  that  would  have  existed  had  no 
colonies  ever  been  founded.  She  established 
during  the  colonial  period  no  department 
or  board  for  the  sake  of  the  colonies  alone. 
Except  in  a  few  minor  cases  no  official  was 
ever  appointed  in  England  that  would  not 
have  been  appointed  for  the  ordinary  busi- 


THE  NAVIGATION  ACTS  121 

ness  of  the  realm,  and  even  the  colonial 
governor,  though  the  office  in  its  develop 
ment  naturally  assumed  new  characteristics, 
was  no  new  invention.  The  titles  of  other 
officials  were  familiar  to  all  Englishmen,  and 
the  system  of  collectors,  naval  officers,  and 
vice-admiralty  courts  was  merely  the  extension 
to  the  colonies  of  the  larger  system  at  home. 
But  England's  own  constitutional  and 
administrative  organization  underwent  great 
changes  during  the  seventeenth  and  eight 
eenth  centuries.  The  institutions  of  the 
seventeenth  century  were  largely  transformed 
in  the  eighteenth,  and  the  governmental 
situation  in  1750  was  very  different  from  that 
in  1660.  Between  these  years  Englana 
passed,  constitutionally  speaking,  from  a 
medieval  to  a  modern  state.  Before  1689 
governmental  methods  were  largely  royal 
and  personal;  after  1714  they  were  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  departmental  and 
official.  During  the  period  of  settlement 
we  read  much  of  the  king,  his  chancellor, 
treasurer,  and  admiral,  his  council  and  com 
missions;  after  1714  we  find  a  series  of 
great  departments,  the  Admiralty,  the  Treas 
ury,  the  War  Office,  and  a  group  of  state 
officials,  such  as  the  secretaries,  filling  the 
scene.  The  seventeenth-century  system  of 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

administration  was  medieval  and  in  a  sense 
'    feudal;    that  of  the  eighteenth  century  was 
modern,  civil,  and  largely  impersonal. 

Properly  speaking,  during  the  whole  colo 
nial  period,  the  ultimate  executive  authority, 
in  all  that  concerned  the  colonies,  was  the 
king  and  the  Privy  Council;  but  before 
1689,  the  two  in  combination,  constituting 
the  king  in  council,  shared  their  authority 
with  no  one.  Subordinate  departments 
hardly  existed,  and  subordinate  officials, 
such  as  the  lord  high  treasurer  and  the  lord 
high  admiral,  were  the  king's  servants, 
however  important  they  might  be.  The 
various  councils  and  commissions  appointed 
to  look  after  trade  and  the  colonies  were 
simply  advisers  of  the  crown,  and  could  be 
created  and  abolished  at  will.  The  Privy 
Council  might  take  into  its  own  hands  all 
the  functions  temporarily  exercised  by  such 
bodies,  as  it  did  in  1674,  when  the  council 
of  1672  was  dissolved,  and  it  could  perform 
the  duties  itself  through  a  committee  of 
its  own,  as  from  1674  to  1696,  when  the 
supervision  of  trade  and  the  plantations  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  Lords  of  Trade.  The 
.p  point  is  that  nearly  to  the  end  of  the  seven- 
Jr\  teenth  century  the  king  and  the  council  and 
their  advisory  boards  and  committees  were 


THE  NAVIGATION  ACTS 

in  absolute  control  of  all  colonial  business 
and  shaped  an  administrative  policy  for  the 
colonies  that  was  to  last  but  little  changed 
for  a  century. 

From  the  beginning  the  duty  of  these 
councils  and  committees  was  to  regulate  and 
promote,  not  the  welfare  of  the  colonies  as 
such,  but  the  trade  and  commerce  of  the 
kingdom.  The  plantations  were  at  all 
times  secondary  to  trade,  and  the  trade 
with  which  these  bodies  were  concerned  was 
the  entire  trade  of  the  kingdom.  With  trade 
went  its  concomitants,  manufactures,  indus 
try,  the  poor,  imports  and  exports,  pro 
duction  and  distribution,  free  trade  and 
monopoly,  improvement  of  ports  and  har 
bors,  customs,  impositions  and  excise,  trade 
practices  of  foreign  nations,  and  methods 
whereby  the  competition  of  other  nations 
might  be  met  and  overcome.  Thus  these 
boards  of  control  performed  the  functions 
of  many  modern  commissions,  of  labor  and 
commerce,  tariffs,  health,  and  emigration. 
Under  such  circumstances  no  adequate  colo 
nial  policy  could  be  evolved  that  was  not 
merely  an  adjunct  to  a  commercial  policy, 
and  the  measure  of  British  colonial  control 
can  be  determined  only  in  terms  that  are 
largely  economic  and  financial. 


124  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

But  even  when  viewing  colonial  interests 
from  the  commercial  point  of  view,  the  Privy 
Council  and  the  subordinate  boards  busied 
themselves  with  a  great  variety  of  colonial 
matters.  The  orders  of  the  council  and  the 
instructions  to  and  proceedings  of  the  boards 
show  that  the  colonies  were  frequently  before 
their  minds  and  in  their  hearts.  If  they  were 
to  improve  the  trade  of  the  kingdom  it  was 
necessary  that  they  know  all  about  the 
settlements  beyond  the  seas  and  see  that 
nothing  happened  to  injure  these  important 
territories.  They  inquired  into  the  general 
state  of  the  colonies,  obtained  full  informa 
tion  regarding  councils,  assemblies,  courts  of 
justice,  courts  of  admiralty,  legislative  and 
executive  powers,  statutes  and  ordinances, 
militia,  fortifications,  arms,  and  ammunition. 
They  found  out  all  they  could  about  bound 
aries,  land,  mines,  staple  products,  and 
manufactures,  rivers,  harbors,  and  fisheries, 
and  received  statistics  of  population,  immi 
gration,  shipping,  and  revenues.  They  made 
honest  efforts  to  discover  the  obstacles  to 
trade  and  how  they  could  be  removed,  the 
advantages  and  how  they  could  be  increased, 
V  and  they  were  interested  in  all  measures 
taken  for  the  instruction  of  the  people  and  the 
maintenance  of  the  ministry.  They  entered 


THE  NAVIGATION  ACTS  125 

in  to  frequent  correspondence  with  the  govern 
ors,  urged  upon  the  latter  the  necessity  of 
keeping  the  peace  with  their  neighbors  and 
with  the  Indians,  and  of  guarding,  should 
war  break  out,  the  persons,  goods,  and  pos 
sessions  of  the  settlers. 

This  was  the  field  within  which  the  Privy 
Council  and  the  boards  acted  in  the  seven 
teenth  century,  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  they  did  all  these  things  in  order  to 
make  the  colonies  profitable  to  the  crown. 
Quarrels  and  disputes  only  hindered  the 
growth  of  the  plantations;  lands  granted 
but  unoccupied  and  uncultivated  were  value 
less  to  Great  Britain;  New  Netherland  in 
the  hands  of  the  Dutch  was  a  distinct  menace 
to  British  commerce  with  the  colonies;  an 
independent  Massachusetts,  persistently  ig 
noring  the  acts  of  trade  and  the  commands  of  y 
the  king,  was  assuming  a  position  that  could 
not  be  tolerated,  if  dependency  on  the  crown 
was  the  essential  status  of  a  colony;  many 
small,  separate  colonies,  such  as  England 
tried  to  unite  in  1686  under  Andros  and 
afterward  to  bring  directly  under  the  au 
thority  of  the  king,  were  a  weakness  in  time 
of  danger  and  a  "great  and  growing  prejudice 
to  the  king's  affairs  in  the  plantations,"  and 
should  not  be  allowed  to  remain  outside  the 


126  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

king's  control;  wasted  and  plundered  colonial 
territory,  such  as  would  result  from  attacks 
by  the  French  and  Indians,  or  territory  lost  to 
England  and  in  the  hands  of  her  enemies,  was 
of  no  value  to  either  statesmen  or  merchants. 
Thus  in  the  seventeenth  century  control 
over  the  colonies  was  measured  by  the  ease 
and  success  with  which  they  could  be  man- 
aged  in  the  interest  of  British  plans  for  the 
enriching  and  strengthening  of  the  king 
dom.  In  the  earlier  years  of  settlement  the 
crown  had  allowed  proprietors  and  corpo 
rations  to  stand  between  it  and  the  colonies 
and  to  determine  in  large  part  the  govern 
ment  which  the  colony  was  to  possess.  Hence 
had  arisen  the  great  variety  of  forms  and 
institutions  in  America,  from  the  democracy 
of  New  England  to  the  autocratic  system 
first  introduced  into  New  York  and  the  mil 
itary  governnments  of  Newfoundland  and 
Nova  Scotia.  But  gradually  there  began  to 
take  shape  the  idea  of  a  more  uniform  and 
centralized  system  of  colonial  control  where- 
\  by  the  usefulness  of  the  colonies  might  be 
more  effectively  developed,  and  a  self-suffic 
ing  economic  empire  might  be  built  up  under 
the  immediate  control  of  the  British  crown. 
Jamaica  was  a  crown  colony,  Virginia  and 
Barbadoes  had  become  such,  and  in  the 


THE  NAVIGATION  ACTS  127 

decade  from  1680  to  1690  New  England,  the 
Jerseys,  Maryland,  and  Bermuda  were 
brought  into  line,  though  in  part  this  arrange 
ment  was  to  prove  but  temporary.  How  far 
this  attempt  to  transform  proprietary  and  . 
corporate  colonies  into  royal  provinces  re- 
presents  a  definite  policy,  we  need  not  in 
quire,  but  it  was  continued  in  the  next 
century  when  the  Jerseys,  the  Carolinas, 
Bahamas,  and  Georgia  were  added,  and  if 
the  Board  of  Trade  had  had  its  way  the  other 
colonies  would  have  been  added  also.  The 
main  point  is,  that  Englishmen  were  awak 
ening  to  the  fact  that  the  old  laissez-faire 
system  of  the  seventeenth  century,  according 
to  which  the  government  regulated  trade 
but  took  very  little  direct  interest  in  colonial 
administration,  was  proving  hopelessly  inad 
equate  and  the  conviction  was  abroad,  partic 
ularly  among  those  whose  business  it  was  to 
inform  themselves  of  conditions  in  America, 
that,  if  the  plantations  were  to  occupy 
the  place  that  England  intended  that  they 
should  occupy,  and  if  they  were  to  be  comV 
pelled  to  obey  the  trade  regulations  which 
England  intended  they  should  obey,  they 
must  all  be  directly  controlled  by  the  crown. 


CHAPTER  VI 

IMPERIAL     ADMINISTRATION     IN     THE     EIGHT 
EENTH    CENTURY 

THE  revolution  of  1688,  the  consequences 
of  which  were  not  determined  till  1702,  and 
perhaps  not  fully  determined  till  after  1714, 
marks  in  a  general  way  the  dividing  line 
between  the  old  constitutional  system  and 
the  new.  The  crown,  though  retaining  its 
prerogative  rights  under  William  III  and  in 
a  measure  under  Anne,  finally  ceased  to  be  a 
guiding  factor  in  government  and  its  place 
was  taken  by  the  great  officers  of  state,  who, 
though  ministers  of  the  prerogative  in  origin 
and  in  large  part  remaining  so  legally,  were 
becoming  more  and  more  ministers  of  parlia 
ment,  particularly  after  1746,  and  heads  of 
independent  departments.  The  Privy  Coun 
cil,  though  retaining  its  dignified  position  as 
one  of  the  oldest  and  most  commanding  of 
all  the  organs  of  government,  and  still  influ 
ential  as  the  ultimate  authority  in  colonial 
affairs,  was  fast  losing  its  place  as  a  deliber 
ative  and  originating  body.  It  still  retained, 
when  sitting  as  a  committee  of  the  whole 
council,  extensive  functions,  and  no  colonial 
1*8 


IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION       129 

law  could  be  disallowed  or  confirmed,  no 
appeal  or  complaint  heard,  no  governois' 
commission  or  instructions  issued,  except 
by  itself.  Though  losing  much  of  its 
importance  in  the  presence  of  the  great 
officials  and  departments  that  were  actu 
ally  running  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom,  it 
was  no  figure-head  as  far  as  the  colonies 
were  concerned. 

Parliament  was  extending  its  powers  and 
taking  over  many  of  the  functions  of  the 
executive,  particularly  after  the  middle  of  r\ 
the  century,  when  royal  proclamations,  orders 
in  council,  and  instructions  to  the  governors 
were  proving  insufficient  to  check  the  ag 
gressions  of  the  colonial  assemblies.  Par 
liamentary  statute  was  taking  the  place  of 
the  royal  order  as  the  final  authority  in 
shaping  the  constitution.  As  the  king  and 
Privy  Council  fell  into  the  background,  the 
secretariat  and  the  departmental  boards 
rose  into  prominence,  and  government  by 
party,  cabinet,  and  executive  officials  and 
commissions  characterized  the  period. 
Though  the  king's  sign-manual,  the  great 
seal,  and  the  order  in  council  were  still  neces 
sary,  as  they  are  today,  to  give  legal  warrant 
to  acts  of  government  not  regulated  by  stat 
ute,  they  tended  to  become  in  the  eighteenth 


130          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

century  legal  formulae  registering  the  recom 
mendations  of  officials  and  departments. 

What  were  the  bodies  that  had  to  do  with 
plantation  during  this  second  period  of  our 
history?  The  tale  is  more  complex  than  for 
the  period  before  1689.  We  still  have  the 
king  in  whose  name  all  commissions  were 
issued,  except  those  of  the  customs  officials 
in  America.  We  have  also  the  Privy  Council, 
of  importance  chiefly  when  sitting  as  com 
mittee,  concerning  itself  but  little  with  gen 
eral  colonial  business,  though  still  a  factor 
of  the  highest  importance  in  certain  speci 
fied  directions.  We  have  parliament  entering 
into  a  wider  field  of  activity,  putting  forth 
an  increasing  number  of  statutes  funda 
mentally  different  from  those  issued  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  calling  for  information 
and  elaborate  reports  from  boards  and 
departments,  the  members  of  which  generally 
sat  in  the  House  of  Lords  or  the  House  of 
Commons  and  presented  bills  of  interest  to 
their  particular  board  or  department;  ap 
pointing  committees  to  consider  colonial 
questions  and  summoning  before  it  the 
advocates  or  opponents  of  a  particular  meas 
ure.  We  have  the  secretary  of  state  for  the 
southern  department,  now  the  influential 
head  of  a  separate  office  of  government,  into 


IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION       131 

whose  hands  was  coming  a  vast  mass  of 
foreign,  domestic,  and  colonial  business.  He 
was  no  longer  the  mere  secretary  who  con 
ducted  the  correspondence,  or  even  the 
representative  of  the  king  in  the  latter's 
communications  with  the  council,  as  under 
William  III,  but  had  become  the  aggressive 
head  who  initiated  policies  and  asserted  the 
right  to  carry  them  out. 

After  king,  Privy  Council,  and  secretary 
of  state  came  the  great  independent  depart 
ments  of  the  Treasury  and  the  Admiralty, 
possessing  executive  functions  as  depart 
ments  of  state.  The  financial  system  of 
England  with  which  the  colonies  came  into 
frequent  and  persistent  contact  consisted 
of  three  parts:  the  treasury  board,  af ter  ^ 
1733  in  a  new  building  at  the  Cockpit,  which  I 
controlled  the  financial  policy;  the  excheq 
uer  at  Westminster  Hall,  where  the  ac 
counts  of  receipts  and  disbursements  were 
kept;  and  the  bank  of  England,  where 
after  1694  the  money  was  actually  deposited. 
Under  the  treasury  were  many  lesser  boards 
and  officials  —  the  commissioners  of  cus 
toms,  the  victualling  board,  the  auditor 
general  of  plantation  revenues,  the  register 
of  emigrants  to  the  plantations,  the  general 
post-office,  and  occasionally  temporary  com- 


132  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

missions  such  as  those  that  inquired  into  the 
claims  of  American  Loyalists  and  of  East 
Florida  settlers  after  1783.  Much  time  has 
been  devoted  to  the  study  of  colonial  finance, 
but  almost  no  attention  whatever  has  been 
paid  to  the  methods  of  financial  control 
adopted  by  the  British  Treasury  in  dealing 
with  royal  revenues  and  expenditures  in  the 
colonies.  Yet  these  revenues  were  neither 
uninteresting  nor  unimportant. 

In  close  connection  with  the  Treasury, 
though  in  no  sense  dependent  upon  it,  was 
that  "subordinate  but  opulent  office,"  as 
Lord  Rosebery  calls  it,  the  office  of  the  pay- 
*  master  general  of  the  forces,  the  incumbent 
of  which  was  of  ministerial  rank  and  politi 
cal  importance  and  possessed  of  opportuni 
ties,  in  that  corrupt  century,  of  acquiring 
private  wealth  at  the  expense  of  the  state. 
Prominent  men  held  this  office  and  profited 
by  it,  though  William  Pitt  passed  through 
his  tenure  of  it  unscathed.  Under  the  pay 
master  were  the  deputy  paymasters  in 
America  and  elsewhere,  through  whom  the 
troops  were  paid,  works  and  fortifications 
erected,  and  ordinary  and  extraordinary 
expenses  met. 

The  second  of  the  great  departments  was 
the  Admiralty,  the  beginnings  of   which,  as 


IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION       133 

an  efficient  working  body,  date  from  the 
reorganization  brought  about  by  two  men 
better  known  in  other  connections,  James, 
Duke  of  York,  and  Samuel  Pepys,  respectively 
lord  high  admiral  and  secretary  first  of  the 
navy  board  and  afterward  of  the  higher  ~ 
admiralty  board.  The  admiralty  system  fv 
after  1709  consisted  of  an  admiralty  board, 
a  treasurer,  a  navy  board,  a  victualling  board, 
a  marine  office,  a  board  of  sick  and  wounded, 
a  transport  board,  and  Greenwich  hospital, 
formed  from  the  palace  of  Greenwich,  which 
William  III  gave  to  the  nation  in  1694. 
The  Admiralty  had  oversight  of  the  great 
squadrons  of  the  fleet,  and  busied  itself  with  / 
convoys  and  transports,  imprests  and  em-^ 
bargoes,  pirates,  privateering,  passes,  and 
the  enforcement  of  the  trade  laws.  It  plays 
little  part  in  colonial  history  before  1676 
and  its  share  in  protecting  colonial  trade 
does  not  become  conspicuous  till  after  1690, 
though  even  at  the  height  of  its  activity  the 
demands  of  colonial  trade  were  always 
deemed  secondary  to  the  demands  of  the 
navy  as  an  instrument  of  war. 

The  last  of  the  departments,  though  never 
a  separate  executive  organ  and  assuming  no 
responsibilities  even  within  the  limited  scope 
of  its  activities,  was  the  War  Office  under  a 


134  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

secretary  at  war.  This  official  traced  his 
origin  to  the  period  of  the  Interregnum,  but 
he  was  continued  under  Charles  II  as  a 
secretary  to  the  general  of  the  forces.  He 
was  of  comparatively  little  importance  before 
1689,  for  there  was  no  standing  army;  but 
after  that  date,  when  a  standing  army  was 
created  annually  by  the  Mutiny  Bill,  he  con 
tinued  to  increase  in  dignity  and  power. 
After  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
he  was  able  to  build  up  a  strong  departmental 
system  which  performed  the  routine  work 
connected  with  the  army  according  to  the 
discipline  of  war.  This  department  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  militia,  the  guards, 
or  with  ordnance,  transport,  and  supply, 
and  before  1756  it  plays  little  or  no  part  in 
colonial  history.  But  after  that  date  it 
stands  as  equally  important  with  the  depart 
ments  of  the  Admiralty  and  the  Treasury, 
except  that  it  had  no  share  in  shaping  the 
policy  of  a  campaign.  Secretaries  of  state, 
such  as  Pitt,  controlled  entirely  matters  of 
war  policy.  As  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons  the  secretary  at  war  had  to  move 
the  army  estimates  in  parliament,  and  with 
the  aid  of  the  judge  advocate  general  to 
meet  every  attack  upon  the  commander-in- 
chief  or  his  office.  He  was  constantly  in 


IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION       135 

correspondence  with  officials  in  America 
and  had  charge  of  the  welfare  of  the  army 
there.  He  was  in  close  touch  with  the  de 
partment  of  ordnance,  a  separate  office 
under  the  master  general  and  board  of 
ordnance,  which  controlled  the  artillery  and 
engineer  corps,  the  equipment  of  barracks, 
fortifications  and  works,  and  with  the 
commissary  general  who  looked  after  the 
supplies. 

Last  of  all,  we  come  to  that  very  important 
though  subordinate  body,  familiar  to  all 
students  of  colonial  history,  the  Board  of 
Trade  and  Plantations  established  in  1696^ 
It  was  the  direct  successor  of  the  councils 
and  committees  of  the  seventeenth  century 
and  the  faithful  preserver  of  their  policy. 
The  field  of  its  activities  was  somewhat 
more  limited  than  that  of  the  former  coun 
cils,  but  within  its  narrower  range  it  found 
more  to  do  owing  to  the  great  expansion  of 
trade  during  the  years  that  had  elapsed 
since  1696.  In  its  hands  lay  the  chief  busi 
ness  of  communicating  with  the  colonies, 
and  from  its  papers  Privy  Council,  parlia 
ment,  and  departments  obtained  the  infor 
mation  that  guided  their  action.  But  it  had 
no  power  of  its  own  to  carry  out  a  policy, 
being  entirely  dependent  on  ministerial  sup- 


136          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

port  for  the  maintenance  of  its  program. 
The  carefully  formulated  plans  of  the  board 
might  be  overturned  at  any  time  by  an 
adverse  vote  in  parliament  or  by  an  adverse 
decision  of  the  committee  of  the  Privy  Coun 
cil,  to  which  all  its  regular  reports  and  repre 
sentations  were  made. 

The  Board  of  Trade  was  the  only  important 
body  in  the  British  system  of  government 
that  had  no  executive  powers  of  its  own.  It 
could  always  inquire  and  inform  itself,  it 
could  make  any  number  of  recommendations 
and  suggestions,  its  advice  was  sought  and 
generally  adopted,  and  at  times  it  had  a 
considerable  right  of  patronage;  but  it  did 
not  have  what  was  of  fundamental  impor 
tance,  the  power  to  form  a  clear-cut  and  effec 
tive  program  with  the  certainty  that  it 
would  be  carried  out.  The  board  lasted  for 
eighty-seven  years;  it  developed  fairly  defi 
nite  ideas  as  to  what  the  British  policy 
toward  the  colonies  should  be;  it  maintained 
in  the  Plantation  Office  a  permanent  staff 
of  secretaries  and  clerks  who  became  the 
guardians  of  the  traditions  of  the  office;  and 
upheld,  during  periods  of  political  manipu 
lation  and  frequent  change,  a  more  or  less 
fixed  colonial  program.  It  was,  indeed,  often 
slow  and  indecisive  in  its  action  and  as 


IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION       137 

William  Knox,  who  knew  the  office  well, 
once  said,  "countenance  was  necessary  for 
getting  business  done,"  but  it  was  hampered, 
checked,  and  thwarted  at  many  stages  of 
its  career  by  other  governmental  bodies 
that  alone  were  responsible  for  the  ultimate 
decision  of  the  British  government  in  matters 
relating  to  the  colonies.  The  Privy  Council 
could  and  did  reverse  its  decisions,  the  secre 
tary  of  state  could  and  did  draw  away  its 
business  and  its  patronage  and  reduce  it  to 
a  more  or  less  inferior  bureau  of  information, 
the  houses  of  parliament  could  and  did  pass 
laws  that  the  board  did  not  recommend, 
and  refuse  to  pass  laws  that  the  board  desired 
as  deserving  of  support  in  the  interest  of  the 
kingdom.  The  departments  of  the  Treasury 
and  the  Admiralty  took  no  orders  from  the 
board  and  while  frequently  cooperating  with 
it,  when  such  cooperation  was  necessary 
and  desirable,  took  their  own  time  about 
doing  so,  and  sometimes  ignored  the  sug 
gestions  of  the  board  altogether. 

These  were  the  principal  organs  of  the 
British  administration  with  which  the  colo 
nies  came  into  contact  and  through  which 
the  British  government  exercised  its  control. 
The  machinery  was  the  same  machinery  that 
England  would  have  had  if  the  colonies  had 


138          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

not  been  in  existence.  All  the  bodies  and 
officials  mentioned  had  the  regular  business 
of  the  kingdom  to  look  after  and  all,  except 
j  perhaps  the  Board  of  Trade,  had  to  turn 
aside  to  deal  with  the  colonies  as  but  a 
minor  and  comparatively  unimportant  part 
of  their  regular  duties.  With  characteristic 
devotion  to  practices  of  the  past,  the  govern 
ment  never  recognized  the  necessity  of  a 
colonial  office.  It  placed  the  general  over 
sight  of  twenty  important  colonies  in  the 
hands  of  a  body  of  men  who  considered  a 
vast  deal  of  business  that  was  not  colonial, 
from  the  running  of  wool  to  quarantine 
regulations  and  the  prevention  of  contagion 
and  epidemics;  who  sometimes  sat  for  days 
debating  the  instructions  to  a  foreign  envoy 
or  the  terms  of  a  trade  treaty;  who  were  in 
correspondence  with  consuls,  envoys,  agents, 
and  scores  of  other  persons  who  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  colonies,  and  who  spent  as 
much  time  on  matters  connected  with  the 
trade  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  and 
of  Hamburg,  Sweden,  France,  Russia,  Portu 
gal,  the  Mediterranean,  and  Africa  and  the 
African  Company  as  they  did  on  affairs  in 
America  and  the  West  Indies.  Is  it  surprising 
that  a  board  should  have  proved  ineffective 
that  had  no  power  of  its  own  to  execute  a 


IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION       139 

definite  policy,  which  was  distracted  by  a 
hundred  questions  that  in  no  way  concerned 
the  colonies,  whose  chief  interest  in  America, 
as  in  other  parts  of  the  empire,  was  the 
encouragement  and  extension  of  trade,  and 
whose  attention  was  directed  far  more  to 
ward  the  West  Indies  than  to  the  colonies 
on  the  mainland,  with  whose  growth  and 
aspirations  the  board  had  but  slight  acquaint 
ance? 

Furthermore,  the  real  reponsibility  for 
a  colonial  policy  lay,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
with  offices  of  government  that  dealt  with 
colonial  affairs  only  as  incidental  to  their 
regular  duties.  The  secretary  of  state  for 
the  southern  department,  for  example,  had 
under  his  charge,  not  only  the  colonies,  but 
the  whole  of  southern  Europe  including 
Turkey,  as  well  as  Africa  and  the  islands  off 
the  African  coast,  Scotland  and  Ireland,  war, 
and  domestic  concerns.  It  is  true  that  some 
of  this  business  rested  very  lightly  on  his 
shoulders  and  that  other  officials  took  many 
of  his  responsibilities  upon  themselves;  but 
it  is  also  true  that  did  the  secretary  desire 
to  interfere  in  any  of  these  concerns,  he  could 
be  very  mischievous  in  doing  so  and  could 
hamper  other  subordinate  officials  as  he  did 
the  Board  of  Trade,  by  controlling  their 


140          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

actions  and  by  taking  out  of  their  hands 
much  that  might  better  have  been  left  alone. 
In  the  case  of  all  the  departments  no  attempt 
was  made  until  late  in  their  history  to  keep 
colonial  entries  and  accounts  separate  from 
the  records  for  the  United  Kingdom,  and 
all  are  mingled  together  in  a  fashion  that  is 
not  only  embarrassing  to  the  modern  student 
but  must  have  been  equally  embarrassing 
to  the  officials  themselves  in  their  search 
for  information.  Until  1767  even  the  statis 
tics  regarding  colonial  customs  and  the  lists 
of  colonial  customs  officials  were  scattered 
among  the  papers  and  rolls  that  relate  to 
England  itself. 

Consideration  must  also  be  given  to  two  or 
three  aspects  of  the  situation  in  England  that 
had  an  undoubted  influence  upon  the  British 
system  of  administration.  First,  the  many 
offices  of  administration  were  not  centralized, 
but  were  widely  scattered,  the  heads  in 
Whitehall  and  the  subordinate  branches 
two  miles  away  in  the  City  and  about  the 
Tower.  There  were  fifteen  different  offices 
connected  with  the  Admiralty,  no  two  of 
which  were  under  the  same  roof,  and  there 
were  a  dozen  divisions  that  had  to  do  with 
the  business  of  war,  of  which  only  three  or 
four  were  in  the  same  place.  Secondly,  a 


IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION       141 

low  order  of  efficiency  and  sense  of  duty 
prevailed  among  the  officials  in  the  higher 
ranks,  resulting  in  great  hindering  of  busi 
ness  and  negligence  in  the  execution  of  orders 
and  instructions.  Thirdly,  a  loose  and  demor 
alizing  financial  system,  whereby  graft  and 
peculation  went  on  among  the  higher  offi 
cials,  and  poverty  and  want  prevailed  among 
the  office  clerks,  postmen,  messengers,  and 
wage  earners,  whose  pay  was  frequently 
in  arrears.  Lastly,  politics  tended  to  inter 
fere  with  appointments  and  removals,  and 
personal  motives  and  personal  ambitions 
influenced  the  selection  of  officials  both  in 
England  and  America.  How  far  this  situa 
tion  operated  disadvantageous^  it  is  diffi 
cult  to  say.  Despite  the  frequent  changes 
that  were  made  in  the  personnel  of  the  Board 
of  Trade  and  despite  the  inferior  abilities 
and  low  aims  of  many  of  the  commissioners, 
the  board  had  a  consistent  policy  that  de 
serves  our  respect,  and  much  might  have 
been  accomplished  had  it  received  adequate 
support  from  those  who  had  the  ultimate 
responsibility  in  their  hands. 

Nevertheless  British  rule  in  America  was 
no  dead  letter.  The  extent  of  royal  author 
ity  exercised  and  obeyed  in  the  colonies 
was  very  great.  During  the  seventeenth 


142          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

century  royal  control  was  potential  rather 
than  active.  There  were  the  officials  in  the 
'  royal  colonies;  there  were  also  a  few  collec 
tors  and  naval  officers;  three  or  four  tempo 
rary  commissions  were  sent  over  in  special 
emergencies  to  remedy  certain  grievances 
and  abuses,  but  beyond  attempting  the 
immediate  work  before  them  these  commis 
sions  did  very  little;  -a  few  soldiers  were 
sent  to  Jamaica,  Virginia,  and  New  York, 
but  they  played  an  insignificant  part  there;  a 
few  ships  of  the  royal  navy  were  despatched 
to  American  waters,  but  the  navy  even  in 
English  history  had  not  become  a  conspicu 
ous  factor.  Except  for  one  great  attempt  to 
unite  all  the  northern  colonies  in  a  single 
dominion  under  a  single  governor,  Andros, 
no  systematic  effort  was  made  to  strengthen 
British  control  of  the  colonies  or  to  introduce 
a  body  of  officials  whose  immediate  end  and 
aim  was  to  serve  the  crown  in  England. 

But  with  the  eighteenth  century  we  feel  a 
tightening  of  the  bonds.  More  colonies 
came  directly  under  the  control  of  the  king 
and  received  royal  appointees.  A  famous 
effort  was  made  to  bring  all  the  proprietary 
and  corporate  governments  into  direct  depend 
ence  on  the  crown  which  lasted  from  1701  to 
1716  and  was  not  entirely  given  up  till  the 


IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION       143 

middle  of  the  century.  This  effort,  one  of  the 
most  significant  and  yet  one  of  the  least 
understood  of  all  England's  attempts  to 
regulate  the  colonies,  was  vigorously  pro 
moted  by  the  Board  of  Trade,  was  taken  up 
with  ecclesiastical  ardor  by  the  Anglican 
church  and  the  Society  for  the  Propagation 
of  the  Gospel,  and  was  supported  by  all  the 
Anglican  churchmen  in  the  colonies,  who 
wished  to  overthrow  the  power  of  the  Puri 
tans  in  New  England  and  the  Quakers  in 
Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey.  The  effort 
had  the  support  of  Queen  Anne  and  the 
Tory  party  in  England  who  upheld  the 
established  church.  But  the  Whigs,  in  full 
control  of  government  after  1714,  opposed 
the  bill,  four  times  presented  (1701,  1706, 
1715,  1722),  because  they  believed  in  Locke's 
doctrine  of  vested  property  rights  and 
deemed  it  unjust  to  deprive  corporation  or 
proprietor  of  franchises  legally  granted. 
They  succeeded  in  postponing  or  defeating 
the  measure  each  time  it  was  presented, 
although  in  1706  it  passed  the  House  of 
Commons  only  to  suffer  defeat  in  the  House 
of  Lords.  The  board  consistently  adhered 
to  its  policy  for  nearly  thirty  years  longer 
and  in  1731  and  1745  rumors  came  to  Connec 
ticut  that  plans  were  on  foot  to  deprive  the 


144          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

colony  of  its  charter  and  to  unite  it  and 
Rhode  Island  to  Massachusetts.  But  the 
plan  if  seriously  considered  was  never  car 
ried  out  and  the  non-royal  colonies  remained 
intact  to  the  end  of  the  colonial  period. 

In  other  respects  the  bonds  with  England 
were  drawn  more  firmly.  Colonial  laws, 
which  in  the  royal  colonies  from  the  first 
(1629  in  Virginia)  had  been  subject  to  the 
ratification  of  the  crown,  were  now  sent 
regularly,  not  only  from  the  royal  colonies, 
but  from  Massachusetts  and  Pennsylvania 
also.  The  only  colonies  that  were  not  re 
quired  to  send  their  laws  to  England  were 
Maryland,  Connecticut,  and  Rhode  Island; 
but  Maryland,  while  a  royal  colony,  had  many 
of  its  laws  disallowed,  and  later  under  the 
proprietary,  particularly  after  1756,  contem 
plated  the  submission  of  its  laws  to  the  board; 
Connecticut  was  instructed  to  send  its  laws 
in  1698  and  did  so;  it  had  one  law  annulled 
in  1705,  another  in  1728,  and  all  its  laws 
reviewed  in  the  years  from  1733  to  1741; 
Rhode  Island  in  1699  sent  over  an  abstract 
of  its  laws  and  in  1704  had  the  act  relating 
to  admiralty  jurisdiction  declared  null  and 
void  although  the  colony  had  never  sent 
over  the  act  itself  for  royal  inspection. 
While  colonial  legislation  was  thus  under- 


IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION      145 

going  rigorous  scrutiny  the  instructions  to 
the  royal  governors  became  more  full  and 
precise,  until  after  1750  they  were  made 
very  positive  and  mandatory.  Great  num 
bers  of  special  instructions  were  drafted 
and  despatched  and  these  instructions  cov 
ered  a  wide  range  of  colonial  interests. 

In  addition  to  the  governors  nearly  all 
the  officials  in  the  royal  colonies  were  ap 
pointed  either  from  England  or  by  royal 
officials  in  America.  Treasurers  were  some 
times  named  by  the  governor,  sometimes 
chosen  by  the  assemblies,  and  constables 
and  overseers,  where  they  existed,  were 
sometimes  appointed  and  sometimes  elected. 
Secretaries,  attorneys  general,  and  chief 
justices  were  appointed  by  the  crown  and 
the  number  of  customs  officials,  beginning 
with  four  in  1676,  steadily  increased  until 
it  reached  forty.  Customs  officers  were  to 
be  found  in  every  colony  from  Nova  Scotia 
to  Barbadoes,  and  they  collected  for  the 
British  exchequer  the  duties  levied  by  the 
act  of  1672.  Deputy  auditors  and  receivers 
general  looked  after  quit-rents,  forfeitures, 
fines,  prize  money,  and  various  licenses. 
Very  important  were  the  courts  of  vice 
admiralty,  set  up  after  1700  to  try  breaches 
of  the  acts  of  trade;  special  courts  appointed 


146          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

for  the  trial  of  pirates;  and  the  commis 
sions  to  decide  boundary  cases  and  to  take 
charge  of  prizes  captured  in  war.  Important 
also  was  the  steady  increase  of  British 
garrisons  stationed  in  Newfoundland,  Nova 
Scotia,  New  York,  South  Carolina,  and 
especially  in  Bermuda,  Jamaica,  and  the 
Leeward  Islands,  and  the  extension  of 
fortifications,  barracks,  and  other  works, 
and  the  supplies  of  arms,  ammunition,  and 
other  munitions  of  war  despatched  by  the 
ordnance  board  for  the  defense  of  the  colo 
nies.  The  long  war  from  1697  to  1715  brought 
conspicuously  forward  the  need  of  protec 
tion  against  the  French,  and  to  certain 
colonial  governors  —  Fletcher,  Bellomont, 
Phips,  and  others  —  were  granted  military 
commissions  over  two  or  more  colonies  that 
gave  great  offense  because  they  seemed  to 
foreshadow  a  more  complete  military  con 
trol.  With  the  years  from  1745  to  1763 
this  question  of  defense  became  a  pressing 
one  and  British  military  interests  in  America 
became  correspondingly  prominent. 

When  brought  together  in  two  or  three 
paragraphs,  and  what  has  been  said  here 
enumerates  but  in  briefest  outline  the  actual 
British  officials  and  interests  in  America,  it 
would  seem  as  if  British  authority  should 


IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION      147 

have  been  amply  upheld  in  the  colonies  and 
that  all  tendencies  toward  colonial  independ 
ence  should  have  been  checked  at  the  out 
set.  But  before  going  further  we  must  take 
two  or  three  things  into  consideration. 

The  system  of  administration  in  England 
was  not  well  adapted  for  the  government  of 
distant  plantations.  Authority  was  decen 
tralized  and  business  was  executed  in  a 
manner  that  was  slow  and  cumbersome. 
Recommendations  lay  in  the  hands  of  a 
great  variety  of  departments,  while  ulti- 
mate  execution  lay  in  the  hands  of  crown  and 
council  or  parliament.  Months  would  elapse 
before  a  recommendation  would  be  acted 
upon  and  sometimes  it  would  not  be  acted 
on  at  all.  Among  the  various  offices,  as  far 
as  colonial  business  went,  there  seemed  to  be 
little  feeling  of  cooperation  and  responsibility. 
The  Admiralty  and  Navy  Board  were  fre 
quently  on  unfriendly  terms,  and  the  Ord 
nance  department  resented  the  efforts  of 
the  secretary  at  war  to  assert  authority  over 
it.  The  Board  of  Trade,  that  knew  the  situ 
ation  in  America  best,  was  helpless  when  it 
came  to  executive  action.  Could  its  reports 
have  had  the  authority  of  commands,  its 
dignity  would  have  been  increased  and  its 
position  greatly  strengthened.  But  it  was 


148          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

never  looked  up  to  as  a  responsible  body, 
the  home  government  never  deemed  it  much 
more  than  advisory  in  character,  and  the 
colonial  governors  never  felt  any  certainty 
that  they  would  be  sustained  if  they  at 
tempted  to  carry  out  rigorously  the  instruc 
tions  sent  to  them.  What  the  government 
should  have  had,  if  the  colonial  policy  of 
England  were  to  be  executed  with  firmness 
and  despatch,  was  a  consistent,  vigorous,  and 
well-defined  method  of  colonial  control, 
in  the  hands  of  a  board  possessed  of  execu 
tive  powers,  and  based  on  an  intelligent 
understanding  of  the  situation  in  America. 
Very  few  of  the  British  officials  had  either 
knowledge  or  understanding  of  America. 
Their  failure  was  not  always  due  to  inability 
to  obtain  information,  for  the  board  could 
generally  give  them  the  information  that  was 
necessary,  but  they  seemed  powerless  to 
comprehend  the  seriousness  of  the  situation 
or  to  meet  it  when  they  saw  the  danger.  Of 
all  offenders  in  this  respect  the  British  parlia 
ment  was  most  conspicuous.  In  thwarting 
the  well-laid  plans  of  the  Board  of  Trade  and 
in  pursuing  an  opportunist  and  conflicting 
policy,  parliament  did  more  than  any  other 
part  of  the  British  system  to  prepare  the 
way  for  the  eventual  revolt  of  the  colonies. 


IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION       149 

Parliament  never  understood  the  aims  and 
tendencies  of  the  people  in  America.  The 
laws  that  it  passed,  like  all  the  statutes 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  were  designed  to 
meet  particular  needs  and  not  based  on  any 
broad  and  general  principles.  Hence  it  was 
inevitable  that  in  nearly  every  respect 
parliamentary  legislation  should  be  fitful 
and  inconsistent  in  character. 

Had  appointments  to  office  been  better 
managed  and  sinecures,  pluralities,  and  ser 
vice  by  deputy  been  strictly  forbidden,  and 
had  colonial  finance  been  capable  of  any 
sort  of  satisfactory  solution,  the  badly  con 
structed  system  of  administration  in  England 
might  not  have  proved  so  inadequate  to 
meet  the  demands  in  America.  But  unfor 
tunately  colonial  management  in  the  eight 
eenth  century  fell  on  an  evil  time.  Polit 
ical  morality  was  at  a  low  ebb  and  bribery 
and  corruption  and  harmful  official  prac 
tices  were  not  only  tolerated  but  defended. 
The  methods  adopted  in  dispensing  public 
patronage  in  England  spread  to  the  colonies; 
civil  service  reform  was  unknown,  except 
perhaps  in  the  lower  staff  offices.  The  fact 
that  the  Board  of  Trade  could  not  appoint 
colonial  officials  threw  the  assignment  of  im 
portant  posts  into  the  hands  of  those  who 


150          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

could  exercise  political  influence.  All  the 
important  colonial  offices  in  the  royal  colonies 
were  held  directly  or  indirectly  of  the  crown. 
Walpole  and  Newcastle  had  their  regular  lists 
of  appointees;  the  bishop  of  London  was  in 
fluential  in  securing  political  preferment  for 
those  whom  he  deemed  useful  allies  of  the 
Anglican  church;  many  private  individuals 
were  able  to  secure  positions  for  those  whom 
they  favored,  with  the  result  that  public  office 
in  the  colonies  was  open  to  men  of  low  stand 
ards  to  whom  the  political  atmosphere  was 
eminently  congenial.  The  situation  was  made 
worse  by  the  practice  of  granting  colonial 
positions  to  men  already  holding  office  in 
England  who  farmed  out  their  patents  to  the 
highest  bidder,  with  the  inevitable  result 
that  the  latter  tried  to  benefit  themselves 
by  using  their  opportunity  for  private  gain, 
a  practice  officially  allowed. 

The  situation  was  still  further  compli 
cated  by  the  inability  of  the  government  to 
create  a  satisfactory  system  of  payment 
for  the  royal  officials  in  America,  either 
out  of  the  British  exchequer  directly  or  by 
obtaining  from  the  colonies  a  regular  appro 
priation  for  a  civil  list  which  would  render 
the  colonial  governors  independent  of  the 
colonial  assemblies.  The  fact  that  many  of 


IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION       151 

the  officials  were  dependent  on  fees  for  their 
support  brought  into  exaggerated  prominence 
the  money  side  of  their  business  and  led  to 
what  often  appears  as  an  over-zealous  regard 
for  such  features  of  their  offices  as  brought  in 
financial  returns.  When  we  consider  these 
and  other  aspects  of  the  British  system  we 
can  wonder,  not  that  so  many  incompetent 
men  came  to  America,  but  that  so  many  men 
of  excellent  purpose  and  high  aims  could 
be  found  to  undertake  the  undesirable  and 
profitless  task  of  serving  the  crown  in  the 
colonies.  General  Carleton  summed  up  the 
position  of  the  governors  admirably  when  he 
wrote,  "It  may  not  be  improper  here  to 
observe  that  the  British  form  of  government 
transplanted  into  this  continent  never  will 
produce  the  same  fruits  as  at  home,  chiefly 
because  it  is  impossible  for  the  dignity  of 
the  throne  or  peerage  to  be  represented  in 
the  American  forests.  Beside,  the  governor 
having  little  or  nothing  to  give  away  can 
have  but  little  influence;  in  place  of  that  it 
is  his  duty  to  retain  all  in  proper  subordina 
tion  and  to  restrain  those  officers  who  live 
by  fees  from  running  them  up  to  extortion; 
these  gentlemen,  put  into  offices  that  require 
integrity,  knowledge,  and  abilities,  because 
they  bid  the  highest  rent  to  the  patentees, 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

finding  themselves  checked  in  their  views 
of  profit  and  disposed  to  look  on  the  person 
who  disappoints  them  as  their  enemy,  and 
without  going  so  far  as  to  forfeit  their  em 
ployment,  they  in  general  will  be  shy  of  grant 
ing  that  assistance  the  king's  service  may 
require,  unless  they  are  all  equally  discon 
tented  or  equally  corrupt." 

To  the  conditions  above  noted  we  must 
add  the  difficulties  of  communicating  with 
dependencies  three  thousand  miles  away. 
Though  packet  boats  were  plying  between 
England  and  the  West  Indies  as  early  as 
1704,  and  Blathwayt,  the  auditor  general, 
urged  the  extension  of  the  system  to  the 
American  continent,  particularly  to  Mary 
land  and  Virginia,  "the  most  profitable 
colonies  of  any  others,"  the  main  dependence, 
until  1755,  was  the  merchant  ship  whose 
captain  received  the  packets  and  boxes  of 
papers  and  delivered  them  at  the  port  for 
which  he  was  destined.  Such  an  irregular 
system  meant  endless  delay  and  not  infre 
quent  loss.  Despatches  from  England  must 
have  had  strange  adventures.  Captains 
sometimes  carried  them  on  long  journeys, 
handed  them  on  from  one  boat  to  another, 
dropped  them  in  the  custom  house  where 
they  waited  a  long  time  before  delivery,  or 


IMPERIAL  ADMINISTRATION       153 

dropped  them  overboard  if  there  was  any 
danger  of  capture.  The  replies  underwent 
the  same  experiences,  having  to  cope  with  a 
very  slow,  irresponsible,  and  expensive  pos 
tal  service,  so  that  communication  at  both 
ends  was  frequently  so  long  delayed  that 
information  was  received  too  late  for  action. 
The  period  of  despatch  and  answer  was 
never  less  than  three  months,  and  thus  the 
game  of  colonial  management  was  generally 
played  in  the  dark.  Governors  wrote  their 
letters  hastily,  with  but  little  chance  of 
revision,  postscripts  were  sometimes  added 
while  the  ship  was  waiting,  and  other  con 
ditions  prevailed  not  conducive  to  thought 
ful  and  well-considered  replies.  The  board 
was  at  times  very  dilatory  in  answering 
important  letters,  on  one  occasiori  allowing 
nearly  three  years  to  elapse  before  taking 
up  the  accumulated  mass  of  colonial  corre 
spondence. 

As  far  as  can  be  determined  at  the  present 
stage  of  investigation,  the  British  system 
of  colonial  control  was  both  inadequate  and 
ineffective,  and  it  would  have  remained  in 
adequate  and  to  a  degree  ineffective  even 
if  it  had  been  honorably,  consistently,  and 
intelligently  conducted,  because  at  best  it 
was  not  designed  to  do  the  work  that  needed 


154          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

to  be  done.  The  British  government  made 
use  of  old  machinery,  constructed  for  a 
different  purpose,  to  meet  a  situation  that 
it  only  partly  understood.  The  system  was 
planned  for  no  higher  purpose  than  the 
furtherance  of  trade  and  commerce,  it  was 
quite  incompetent  to  hold  in  control  a  grow 
ing  people  capable  of  independent  life  and 
restless  under  the  bonds  of  a  colonial  policy 
that  checked  at  critical  points  their  freedom 
of  action. 


CHAPTER  VII 

COLONIAL  STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL 

HAVING  considered  briefly  the  system  of 
administration  in  England  we  must  turn  our 
attention  to  the  colonies  themselves,  in  order 
to  ascertain  the  position  which  they  occupied 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  their  relation  with 
the  government  across  the  sea,  and  the  influ 
ences  which  were  at  work  creating  among 
them  a  feeling  and  spirit  of  independence. 
Independence  and  separation  from  Great 
Britain  were  not  achieved  at  a  single  stroke 
by  war  or  otherwise,  and  the  events  of  the 
years  from  1763  to  1775  were  but  an  outward 
manifestation  of  conviction  and  strength 
already  attained  during  a  century  and  a  half 
of  experience  and  endeavor. 

At  the  outset  distinctions  appear  between 
the  mother  country  and  the  colonies  that  are 
characteristic  of  an  old  and  a  new  society. 
England  was  a  land  of  fixed  traditions,  the 
English  people,  conservative  by  nature, 
were  peculiarly  conservative  during  that  stiff- 
necked  eighteenth  century,  when  institutions 
and  political  opinions  were  settling  into  an 
unyielding  mould  that  was  to  resist  all  at- 

155 


156          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

tempts  at  reform  for  a  century  and  a  quarter. 
If  statesmen  could  not  understand  the  needs 
of  the  people  in  England,  where  aristocratic 
and  proprietary  notions  thwarted  every  at 
tempt  to  remodel  the  existing  social  and  polit 
ical  systems,  how  could  they  understand  the 
needs  of  the  people  of  the  great  frontier  of 
the  west,  where  men  and  women  were  living 
lives  freed  from  tradition  and  convention, 
in  close  touch  with  the  physical  world  around 
them.  Except  in  some  of  the  tide- water 
regions  of  the  south,  the  social  and  political 
atmosphere  of  America  was  essentially  un 
like  that  of  the  mother  country.  In  such  an 
atmosphere  prerogative  would  find  little  sym 
pathy,  feudal  ideas  little  permanence,  and  the 
employment  of  a  colony's  resources  in  behalf  of 
absentee  landlords  and  appointees  was  bound 
to  meet  with  opposition  and  eventual  defeat. 
At  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century 
there  were  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  white  people  along  the  colonial 
seaboard.  Sixty  years  later  the  number  had 
increased  to  more  than  a  million  and  a  half. 
Virginia  with  sixty  thousand  was  followed 
by  Massachusetts,  Maryland,  and  Connecti 
cut  in  the  order  named,  while  Philadelphia, 
the  largest  city,  had  twelve  thousand,  and 
Boston,  New  York,  and  Newport,  seven,  five, 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    157 

and  two  and  a  half  thousand  respectively. 
The  era  of  settlement  was  over  and  that  of 
established  government  had  begun.  The 
colonies  were  no  longer  struggling  plan 
tations.  In  the  issues  of  settlement  they 
had  solved  the  question  of  their  own  per 
manence,  and  in  the  dramatic  scenes  which 
had  accompanied  the  insurrections  of  1676 
and  1689  they  had  expressed  in  no  uncer 
tain  tones  their  dislike  of  autocratic  rule. 
The  Bacon  revolt  in  Virginia  in  1676  had  been 
a  protest  of  the  new  plantations  to  the  west 
against  the  selfish  and  domineering  rule  of 
Berkeley  and  the  older  counties./  The  over 
throw  of  Andros  in  New  England  had  been 
provoked  by  the  annulment  of  the  Massachu 
setts  charter  and  the  abolition  of  represen 
tative  government.  The  Leisler  usurpation 
in  New  York  had  found  its  leading  justi 
fication  in  the  refusal  of  James  II  to  recog 
nize  democratic  institutions  in  that  province. 
The  uprising  in  Maryland  had  been  directed 
against  the  selfish  and  oligarchic  rule  of  the 
proprietary,  in  the  interest,  as  the  people 
supposed,  of  a  Roman  Catholic  control  of  gov 
ernment.  From  all  these  conflicts  the  colonists 
emerged  strengthened  in  their  loyalty  to  popu 
lar  rule,  and  more  assertive  than  ever  of  what 
they  declared  to  be  their  rights  as  Englishmen. 


158          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

With  the  grant  of  representative  govern 
ment  in  New  York,   the  series  of  popular 
assemblies    in    the    colonies    was    complete. 
Though  the  electoral  franchise  varied  widely, 
in  general  it  may  be  said  that  the  voter  had 
to  be  a  white  man,  twenty-one  years  of  age, 
and  possessed  of  property.     Religious  quali 
fications  existed  in  Barbadoes,  Rhode  Island 
(1719),  and  South  Carolina,  where  the  voter 
had   to   be  a   Christian,  in   Virginia,  where 
atheists  were  denied  the  right  to  vote,  and 
in  Maryland,  where  Roman  Catholics  were 
disfranchised  (1718).     The  unit  of  represen 
tation  was  the  town,  county,  parish,  or  pre 
cinct.    The  assembly  was  the  mouthpiece  of 
the  colony  and  derived  its  authority  from  the 
people;    the  governor  and  council  were  the 
representatives  of  the  crown  and  the  prerog 
ative  in  the  royal  colonies  and  derived  their 
authority  from  England.    Governor,  council, 
and  representatives  formed  the  general  as 
sembly,  a  term  that  in  some  instances  the 
•'  popular  body  assumed  to  itself,  and  as  time 
went  on  the  lower  house  steadily  extended 
its  pretensions  to  all  the  privileges  and  pow 
ers  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  England, 
a  claim    that  the  English  authorities  vehe 
mently   denied    as  illegal  and  unwarranted. 
Nowhere  in  the  eighteenth  century,  in  either 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    159 

royal  or  proprietary  colony,  were  the  people  : — " 
\  despotically  governed;  and  no  statesman  or 
department  in  England  had  any  serious 
intention  of  meddling  with  the  political  in 
tegrity  of  the  colonies  or  of  denying  the 
right  of  the  people  to  have  a  share  in  govern 
ment.  England's  colonial  policy  was  never  s* 
designed  to  prevent  the  exercise  of  a  reason 
able  amount  of  political  autonomy,  though 
to  the  Englishman  of  that  day  unalloyed  de 
mocracy  was  neither  necessary  nor  desirable. 

The   British  government   encouraged   the\ 
self-reliance     of     the     colonies     because     it   \. 
wished   to   relieve   the  exchequer  of  heavy      J 
appropriations  for  colonial  maintenance  and    / 
protection.     It  refused  to  make  permanent 
provision  for  defense,  because  it  counted  on 
such  increase  of  population  as  would  enable 
the   colonists   to   defend   themselves;     while 
on  the  side  of  maintenance  it  is  noteworthy 
that    with    the    exception    of    Nova    Scotia, 
Georgia  after  1752,  and  the  Floridas  after 

1763,  no  parliamentary  grant  was  ever  made  ^ 

for  colonial  administration  in  America.  Great 
Britain  expected  every  colony  to  stand  on  its 
own  feet.  Colonial  territory  was  never  incor-* 
porated  as  a  part  of  the  British  kingdom., 
and  the  colonists  were  never  brought  under 
the  administrative  regulations  laid  down  for 


160          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

the  government  of  the  realm.  '  Inevitably,1' 
therefore,  they  tended  to  lose  more  or  less 
their  identity  as  Englishmen  and  to  become 
primarily  attached  to  their  local  communi 
ties,  as  New  Englanders,  Pennsylvanians, 
Virginians,  Barbadians,  and  the  like,  a  result 
more  conspicuous  in  the  continental  than  in 
the  West  Indian  colonies.  Even  as  early  as 
1660,  Massachusetts  had  deemed  allegiance  to 
the  colony  of  greater  moment  than  allegiance 
to  the  crown,  and  doubtless  more  than  one 
colonist  elsewhere  rated  at  less  than  its  face 
value  an  allegiance  that  was  forced  upon 
them  in  compulsory  oaths  at  the  time  of 
departure.  This  tendency  toward  separate- 
ness  was  emphasized  by  the  presence  of  thou 
sands  of  foreigners,  who  owed  no  allegiance 
to  the  British  government  and  to  whom  the 
colony  of  their  residence  was  their  patria. 

Englishmen  never  made  any  serious  at 
tempt  to  sound  the  depths  of  such  senti 
ment,  though  the  secretary  of  state  and  the 
Board  of  Trade  were  well  aware  of  its  exist 
ence,  labelling  it  disaffection  and  ingrati 
tude.  Whenever  a  movement  more  than 
usually  troublesome  took  place,  whether  in 
the  assemblies  of  Massachusetts  or  New  York, 
or  in  the  towns  of  New  Jersey,  the  English 
officials  interpreted  it  as  an  effort  on  the  part 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    161 

of  the  colonists  to  rid  themselves  of  depend 
ency  on  Great  Britain.  "There  is  too  much 
reason,"  wrote  Newcastle  to  Burnet,  "to 
think  that  the  main  drift  of  the  assembly 
in  refusing  to  comply  is  to  throw  of?  the  de 
pendence  on  the  crown,  which  proceeding 
can  in  no  wise  be  justified  by  their  charter 
and  never  will  be  allowed  by  His  Majesty"; 
and  of  the  New  Jersey  riots  of  1748-1749 
the  Privy  Council  said,  "As  the  infection  is 
daily  spreading  it  will  probably  soon  over 
spread  the  whole  province  of  New  Jersey 
and  get  into  the  two  neighboring  provinces 
of  New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  and  may 
in  its  consequence  greatly  affect  the  depend 
ence  of  the  plantations  on  the  crown  of  Great 
Britain,  if  timely  measures  are  not  taken  to 
stop  it."  Nothing  more  was  intended  by  these  \ 
remarks  than  that  the  colonists  were  restive 
under  the  restraints  of  the  British  system. 
Independence  in  the  sense  of  separation  was 
not  seriously  thought  of  either  in  England  or 
America  until  after  1763.  / 

The  colonies  were  growing  with  remark-  . 
able  rapidity.  Eastwardly  their  ships  were 
trading,  not  only  with  England  and  the  West 
Indies,  but  with  the  cities  of  the  North  Sea, 
the  Baltic,  and  the  Mediterranean,  with  the 
coast  of  Guinea,  and  later  with  some  parts  of 


162          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

the  East  Indies.  Westwardly,  the  migrating 
New  Englander,  German,  and  Scots-Irish 
were  filling  the  upland  and  back-country, 
and  planters  from  the  tidewater  were  stak 
ing  land  claims  in  the  mountain  valleys  of 
Virginia  and  the  Carolinas.  In  New  York 
and  New  England  frontier  posts  were  spring 
ing  up  along  the  Mohawk,  in  the  Berkshires, 
and  upon  the  upper  waters  of  the  Connec 
ticut,  the  latter  of  which  were  developing 
into  towns  of  the  old  New  England  type, 
where  the  old  standards  of  morality  and 
education  continued  to  prevail .  As  contrasted 
with  the  island  colonies,  where  expansion  was 
impossible,  the  settlements  on  the  continent 
increased  in  number  with  each  decade,  en 
larging  the  area  of  their  trade  and  cultivation, 
presenting  new  and  weighty  problems  for 
solution,  and  creating  conditions  favorable  to 
individualism  and  the  spirit  of  self-support. 
A  new  generation  was  arising  that  knew\ 
little  of  British  government  and  policy, 
and  whose  horizon  was  bounded  by  the  older, 
settled  area  that  represented  to  them  the 
region  of  privilege  and  fixed  traditions. 
A  more  primitive  but  more  democratic  and 
independent  society  was  gradually  emerging, 
the  peculiarities  of  which  wrere  American 
rather  than  English,  and  out  of  the  conflicts 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    163 

that  followed  with  the  older  settlers  and  Eng 
land  an  American  nationality  was  born. 

Legally  and  in  practice  all  the  colonies  were 
dependent  on  the  crown  of  England.  Such 
dependence  it  was  the  object  of  British  states 
men  to  maintain,  for  in  their  estimation  and 
in  the  estimation  of  the  mercantile  classes 
such  dependence  was  essential  to  the  preser 
vation  of  British  prosperity.  Lord  Mans 
field  struck  at  the  root  of  the  trouble  in  1765, 
when  he  said  in  the  debate  on  the  repeal  of 
the  Stamp  Act,  "The  Americans  may  think 
they  have  a  right  to  an  open  trade  and  es-* 
tablishment  of  manufactures.  What  then 
would  become  of  us  ?  " 

In  actual  operation  dependence  involved 
definite  limitations  upon  the  self-government 
and  economic  freedom  of  the  colonies.  By 
the  imposition  of  certain  feudal  obligations, 
the  greater  number  of  the  colonists  were  ^* 
not  full  owners  of  the  lands  they  occupied. 
By  the  right  of  king  or  proprietor  to  control  x 
the  executive  and  judicial  branches  of  their 
government,  to  instruct  the  governors,  repeal 
legislation,  and  admit  appeals  and  com 
plaints  from  colonial  courts,  the  colonists 
were  subject  to  control  and  interference  on 
the  part  of  the  sovereign  power  beyond  the 
seas.  By  the  asserted  right  of  parliament  to 


164          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

legislate  regarding  trade,  and  to  compel  the 
colonists  by  statute  to  conform  to  England's 
declared  policy  of  using  the  colonies  as 
sources  of  supply  for  the  mother  country, 
they  were  deprived  of  the  full  use  of  their 
own  resources  and  compelled  to  adapt  them 
selves  to  England's  industrial  and  economic 
needs.  Every  act  or  practice  that  represented 
interference  on  the  part  of  king  or  proprietors 
in  the  affairs  of  the  colonists  and  served  as  a 
check  upon  entire  freedom  of  life  and  govern 
ment  can  be  brought  under  one  or  the  other 
of  these  heads.  The  movement  toward  inde 
pendence  consisted  in  the  throwing  off  of  these 
restraints  as  far  as  it  was  possible  to  do  so. 
During  the  colonial  era  all  the  middle  and 
southern  colonies  were  feudal  territories,  the 
lands  of  which  were  owned  by  an  outside 
lord,  king  or  proprietor.  Such  title  to  the 
soil  carried  with  it  certain  feudal  incidents, 
well  known  to  English  land  law  and  practice, 
that  represented  the  relationship  between  a 
lord  and  his  tenants.  There  were  so-called 
manors  in  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Penn 
sylvania,  actual  manors  in  Maryland,  baron 
ies  in  South  Carolina,  and  traces  of  such  in 
cidents  as  view  of  frankpledge,  forfeiture, 
and  escheat,  in  many  of  the  colonies.  The 
law  of  descent  in  Virginia  ;was  by  primo- 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    165 

geniture,  the  succession  of  the  eldest  son, 
various  feudal  forms  of  land  conveyancing 
prevailed,  and  many  courts  baron  and  leet 
must  have  been  held  in  Maryland,  though 
the  record  of  but  one  has  come  down  to  us. 
But  most  of  these  survivals  are  negligible 
factors  in  colonial  life. 

One  practice,  however,  the  payment  of 
quit-rents,  did  not  die.  It  remained  to 
come"~a  source  of  trouble  in  every  con 
tinental  colony  from  New  York  to  Georgia. 
Land  in  these  colonies  was  not  held  in  full 
ownership,  as  it  was  in  New  England  and  Ber 
muda.  Each  colonist,  who  was  a  freeholder, 
was  a  tenant,  paying  to  king  or  proprietor  a 
small  sum  in  recognition  of  the  higher  own 
ership  and  as  quitting  the  land  of  all  further 
obligations.  The  sum,  thus  called  a  quit-rent, 
was  small,  from  one  to  four  shillings  a  hun 
dred  acres,  but  the  colonists  never  liked  it  and 
resisted  the  payment  of  it  from  the  beginning. 

The  collection  of  quit-rents  was  a  perennial 
source  of  trouble.  The  payments  were,  al 
ways  in  arrears,  and  attempts  to  apply  the 
feudal  penalty  of  forfeiting  the  land  were  so 
obnoxious  to  the  colonists  and  so  manifest  a 
retarding  of  settlement  that  forfeiture  was 
forbidden  by  law  in  Virginia  and  rarely 
enforced  elsewhere.  Distraint  at  common  law 


166  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

was  the  customary  form  of  legal  procedure, 
involving  the  seizure  of  some  of  the  colonist's 
property  for  the  non-payment  of  rent.  Of 
all  the  colonies  New  Jersey  was  the  most 
obstinate,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  the  inhabitants  there  engaged  in 
riots  of  a  threatening  character,  when  efforts 
were  made  to  enforce  payment.  Maryland 
was  the  most  tractable  colony,  paying  the 
rents  without  marked  dissatisfaction  to  the 
extent  of  some  £8000  a  year.  The  other 
colonies  contributed  much  less.  Virginia, 
South  Carolina,  Pennsylvania,  and  North 
Carolina  paying  from  £3000  to  £1000,  with 
New  York  and  Georgia  furnishing  but  small 
amounts,  and  New  Jersey  paying  practically 
nothing.  In  some  colonies  the  question  was 
fought  out  in  the  assembly,  in  others  in  the 
courts,  in  northern  New  Jersey  in  the  streets. 
In  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania  refusal  was 
based  on  a  denial  of  the  right  to  collect;  in 
Maryland  and  the  south  on  a  feeling  that  a 
feudal  tenure  was  out  of  place  in  a  frontier 
country.  The  opposition  was  as  strong  in 
the  royal  colonies,  Virginia,  New  York,  and 
after  1730,  the  Carolinas,  where  the  quit- 
rents  were  collected  for  the  crown,  and  part 
of  the  money  was  spent  on  the  colonies  them 
selves,  as  it  was  in  the  proprietary  colonies, 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    167 

Maryland  and  Pennsylvania,  where  the 
money  went  to  the  proprietors.  By  resist 
ing  the  payment  of  quit-rents  the  colonists 
sought  to  transform  their  tenancies  into  free 
property;  to  retain  all  the  resources  of  the 
colony  for  themselves  and  so  to  eliminate  the 
absentee  landlord;  and,  lastly,  to  prevent  the 
crown  from  obtaining  a  permanent  revenue 
from  the  land  by  means  of  which  crown 
officials  might  have  been  freed  from  depend 
ence  on  the  representatives  of  the  people  for 
[their  pay.  The  whole  quit-rent  struggle  is 
\  thus  intimately  bound  up  with  the  colonial 
movement  toward  independence. 

More  significant  even  than  the  resistance 
to  quit-rents  was  the  long-drawn-out  warfare 
which  went  on  in  every  colony,  except  Con 
necticut  and  Rhode  Island,  against  the  right 
of  king  or  proprietor  to  control  the  govern^ 
ment  through  their  appointees,  the  govern 
ors.  King  or  proprietor  appointed  the  gov 
ernor,  and  in  the  case  of  the  proprietor  the 
crown  confirmed  the  nomination  under  cer 
tain  conditions.  The  governor's  powers, 
which  were  very  extensive,  were  granted, 
in  a  general  way,  by  means  of  a  public 
commission  issued  under  the  great  seal,  and 
more  in  detail  by  elaborate  instructions,  not 
intended  for  publication,  sent  privately  and 


168  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

often  secretly  under  the  king's  sign -manual. 
Additional  and  special  instructions  were 
issued  from  time  to  time.  In  scope  the  gov 
ernor's  powers,  as  defined  in  these  important 
documents,  were  ^co-extensive  with  those  of 
the  crown  itself,  being  in  some  particulars 
even  greater,  as  in  the  case  of^the  veta,Qn 
legislation,  which  no  British  sovereign  exer 
cised  after  1707. 

With  the  growth  of  the  popular  assembly 
after  1690,  the  struggle  took  the  form  of  a 
contest  between  the  royal  prerogative,  repre 
sented  by  the  governor  and  the  council 
on  one  side,  and  the  representatives  of  the 
people  on  the  other,  and  thus  resembled  the 
corresponding  conflict  in  England  at  the  same 
time.  The  king  was  exercising  an  authority 
that  he  had  a  legal  and  historical  right 
to  exercise,  while  the  colonists,  unimpressed 
by^Jthe  legal  and  historical  argument,  were 
endeavormg~to^Btain,  as  far  as  they  could, 
control  of  their  own  affairs.  The  position 
of  the  governors  was  far  from  easy.  They 
faced  a  very  determined  body  of  representa 
tives  who  made  bold  and  persistent  attempts 
to  encroach  upon  their  authority  and  to  tear 
away  from  them  some  of  their  powers.  Their 
position  was  often  lamentably  weak;  they 
were  frequently  unsupported  by  the  home 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    169 

government  and  though  they  might  count 
on  the  Board  of  Trade  they  could  never  be 
sure  that  the  secretary  of  state  would  not 
intervene.  Codrington  once  wrote,  "I  had 
much  rather  have  a  furlough  than  a  new  com 
mission.  My  honor  is  much  dearer  to  me 
than  an  employ  more  valuable  than  mine  is 
and  if  an  English  gentleman  is  to  be  perjured, 
clamoured,  and  voted  out  of  his  reputation 
without  being  allowed  a  hearing  a  French 
man  or  even  a  Turk  has  no  reason  to  envy 
an  Englishman,  I  act  with  as  much  cau 
tion  in  everything  I  do  as  if  I  were  walking 
between  red  hot  irons,  and  act  with  the  same 
sincerity  as  if  I  were  to  die  to-morrow.  The 
colonies  abroad  will  be  governed  as  they 
ought  to  be,  when  governors  are  made  inde 
pendent  of  their  assemblies,  and  after  that 
hanged  up  when  they  don't  do  their  duty." 
The  colonial  governors  were  not  as  a  rule 
great  men,  some  of  them  being  inefficient  and 
incompetent,  but  the  fault  lay  less  with  the 
men  than  with  the  system,  which  pro 
vided  for  a  form  of  government  that  never 
did  work  as  it  was  intended  to  do. 

The  most  important  illustration  of  this 
statement  is  the  struggle  for  the  control  of 
the  purse,  the  time-honored  instrument 
used  by  the  parliament  of  England  to  gain 


170          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

its  ends.  According  to  "ancient  custom," 
the  king  controlled  all  the  revenues  of  a 
royal  colony.  The  assembly  voted  the 
money,  which  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  a 
treasurer  or  receiver  general,  who  paid  it 
out  on  the  order  of  the  governor.  Books  of 
accounts  were  to  be  kept  and  transmitted 
half-yearly  to  the  Treasury  in  England,  there 
to  be  examined  and  audited,  that  the  king 
might  be  "satisfied  of  the  right  and  due 
application  of  the  revenue  of  the  plantation." 
This  method  of  procedure,  which  was  re 
stated  veryempEatrcally  in  special  instruc 
tions  sent  out  in  1732,  did  not  suit  the  as- 
,semblies,  which  from  the  first  disputed  the 
right  of  the  governor  to  control  the  expendi 
ture.  In  Massachusetts,  New  York,  New 
Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  and  the  Carolinas, 
the  assembly  asserted,  and  asserted  success 
fully,  theyLjapwer  over  the  finances.  In 
Georgia,  which  came  late  into  the  sTruggle, 
the  conflict  was  fought  out  during  the  war 
with  France.  The  home  government  trained 
by  experience  kept  a  firm  grasp  upon  the 
colony,  while  the  Georgian  assembly,  with  the 
example  of  the  other  colonies  before  it,  re 
sorted  even  to  force,  its  members,  on  one 
occasion,  following  the  precedent  of  the 
English  parliament  of  1629,  holding  the 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    171 

speaker  in  the  chair,  while  business  was 
transacted,  and  seizing  the  books  of  the 
clerk,  that  the  record  might  be  altered  to 
suit  their  purposes.  Even  in  Bermuda  and 
Barbadoes  the  assemblies,  though  never 
asserting  their  claims  in  so  high  handed  a 
manner  as  on  the  continent,  had  many  con 
flicts  with  the  royal  prerogative,  some  of 
which  they  won  and  others  compromised. 

Equally  important  with  the  encroachment 
of  the  assemblies  on  the  financial  functions 
of  the  governors  was  their  determined  re 
fusal  in  nearly  all  the  colonies  to  establish  a 
permanent  civil  list,  which  the  crown  might 
use  for  the  payment  of  the  governors'  salaries 
and  for  the  defense  of  the  colonies  in  time  of 
war.  Hard  as  the  Board  of  Trade  tried  to 
obtain  such  a  revenue  and  strenuously  as 
the  governors  sought  to  force  the  assemblies 
to  appropriate  it,  their  efforts  met  with  no 
success,  except  in  Jamaica,  where  the  assembly 
drove  a  hard  bargain  with  the  British  au 
thorities  by  compelling  them  to  concede 
control  over  legislation  for  a  grant  of  £8000 
a  year.  In  the  other  colonies  no  such  bargain 
was  made,  for  the  assemblies  knew  that  a  .s 
permanent  civil  list  would  render  the  governor 
independent  of  their  control.  By  voting  the  /> 
governors'  salaries  year  by  year  the  assem-lj 


172          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

Ablies  over  and  over  again  bent  the  governors 
w  to   their   own  will    and   compelled  them  to 
I  (yield  even  when  the  instructions  of  king  or 
'proprietor  ordered  them  to  do  otherwise. 

The  Board  of  Trade  was  fully  aware  of 
the  difficulty  and  of  the  danger  to  the  royal 
authority  in  the  colonies.  "It  appeared,"  the 
board  said  in  1725,  in  its  report  on  Shute's 
quarrel  with  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts, 
"that  the  point  contended  for,  was  to  bring 
the  governor  to  a  dependence  on  their  good 
will  for  his  sustenance,  which  would  mani 
festly  tend  to  the  lessening  of  his  authority 
and  consequently  of  that  dependence  which 
this  colony  ought  to  have  upon  the  crown 
/  of  Great  Britain,  by  bringing  the  whole  legis 
lative  power  into  the  hands  of  the  people," 
and,  believing  that  it  was  "absolutely  neces 
sary  that  the  independency  of  the  governor  on 
the  assembly  be  preserved,"  it  made  many 
efforts  to  persuade  parliament  to  enforce  its 
orders  or  to  settle  a  fixed  and  permanent  sal 
ary  out  of  the  royal  exchequer.  But  parlia 
ment  and  the  secretary  of  state  refused  to 
cooperate  and  consequently  the  Board  of 
Trade  was  as  helpless  as  the  governors 
themselves.  The  colonial  assemblies  found 
their  best  ally  in  parliament,  which  post 
poned  till  the  end  of  the  colonial  era  a  policy 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    173 

of  coercion,  which  had  it  been  applied  at  || 
the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century /I 
might  have  altered  the  course  of  our  history. 

By  1750,  in   nearly  all   the  colonies,   the\ 
assembly  had  become  the  most  influential   \ 
factor  in  government.    In  New  York,  wherjr 
the  victory  was  first  won,  the  overthrow  of 
the  royal  prerogative  was  so  complete  that 
the  Privy  Council  could  say  in  1754,  "The( 
assembly  have  taken  to  themselves  not  only 
the  management  and  disposal  of  the  public 
money,   but  have   also   wrested   from   your 
Majesty's   governor   the   nomination   of   all  \ 
officers    of    government,    the    custody    and 
direction  of  all  military  stores,  the  mustering 
and   regulating    of    troops   raised   for   your 
Majesty's  service,  and  in  short  almost  every 
other  executive  part  of  government."   Never-/ 
theless  the  Board  of  Trade  was  still  asserting 
that  there  was  "nothing  so  necessary  to  the 
preservation  of  his  Majesty's  government  in 
the  colonies  as  the  careful  and  strict  mainte 
nance  of  the  just  prerogative,"  and  the  Privy 
Council    could    deny    with    great    emphasis 
in    1765  the  contention  of   the  assembly  of 
Jamaica,  that  its  privileges  did  not  flow  from 
the  grace  of  the  king  but  were  rights  inherent 
in  themselves,  and  five  years  later  could  still 
affirm  that  the  "House  of  Assembly  [of  St. 


174          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

Christopher]  seems  to  have  corrupted  its  own 
constitution  by  affecting  a  power  which  they 
have  not,  analogous  and  co-equal  to  that  of 
the  House  of  Commons  of  Great  Britain." 

Despite  the  refusal  of  the  home  government 
to  accept  the  inevitable,  the  fact  remains  that 
^before  1760  the  royal  control  in  the  colonies 
was  largely  destroyed.  Colonial  officials, 
though  still  appointed  by  royal  warrant,  were 
in  a  majority  of  cases  dependent  on  the 
assemblies  for  their  salaries  and  the  amount 
of  their  fees.  Only  in  Virginia,  the  Carolinas, 
Bermuda,  and  the  Leeward  Islands,  where  the 
governor  and  other  officials  were  paid  out  of 
such  royal  revenues  as  the  quit-rents,  four 
and  a  half  per  cent  duty,  and  certain  export 
dues  and  licenses,  was  the  independence  of 
the  governor  in  a  measure  attained.  Though 
the  crown  was  claiming  the  right  to  extend  the 
privilege  of  representation  to  new  towns  and 
counties  and  so  evidencing  its  distrust  of 
the  elective  element  in  the  colonies,  nearly 
all  the  assemblies  had  taken  that  power  to 
themselves,  and  continued  to  exercise  it 
despite  orders  to  the  contrary  in  the  gov 
ernors'  instructions. 

Thus  colonial  government  was  no  longer  in 
the  hands  of  the  royal  officials;  the  authority 
of  the  royal  and  proprietary  governors  re- 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    175 

laxed;  they  lost  their  patronage,  their  con 
trol  over  the  military,  their  ability  to  employ 
secret  funds,  to  check  riots  and  revolts,  to 
manage  a  police  or  to  take  any  adequate 
measures  to  ensure  security  at  home,  or  to 
protect  the  frontiers  against  the  French  and 
Indians.  The  helplessness  of  the  governors  \ 
in  military  matters  is  strikingly  illustrated  \ 
during  the  French  and  Indian  war  when  the  \ 
assemblies  of  such  colonies  as  Pennsylvania, 
Maryland,  and  North  Carolina  were  so  busy  / 
defending  the  constitutional  powers  they  had  / 
won  that  they  disgracefully  neglected  ther 
common  cause  of  defense  against  the  enemy. 
As  we  have  already  seen  in  a  previous 
chapter  the  colonies  were  subject  to  control 
at  the  hands  of  the  crown  in  another  impor 
tant  respect.  The  laws  of  nearly  every  colony 
were  subject  to  the  scrutiny  of  the  higher 
authorities  in  England.  If  the  king  in  council 
approved  of  the  laws  they  were  returned  to 
the  colony  and  became  a  permanent  part  of 
its  legislation  until  their  expiry  or  their 
repeal  by  the  colonial  legislature.  This  right 
of  the  king  to  disallow  colonial  legislation 
was  a  very  real  check^ujxm  self-goyernment. 
A  colonial  law^  had  to  pass,  not  only  the 
veto  of  the  governor  in  the  colony,  but  also 
the  royal  disallowance  in  England  before  it 


176          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

could  take  effect.  The  king  himself,  of  course, 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter.  In  most 
cases  the  Board  of  Trade  settled  it  with  the 
advice  of  its  lawyers,  and  this  power  became 
a  weapon  of  no  little  importance  in  the  hands 
of  the  board.  It  is  idle  to  say  that  the  weapon 
was  never  wielded  or  was  rendered  useless 
by  colonial  strategy.  During  the  period 
from  1675  to  1775  probably  more  than  five 
hundred  laws  were  disallowed  for  the  con 
tinental  colonies  alone,  and  never  was  a  more 
rigid  scrutiny  exercised  than  after  1770,  when 
"Omniscient"  Jackson,  a  strict  construc- 
tionist  of  unbending  type,  was  the  legal  ad 
viser  of  the  board. 

How  far  such  disallowance  of  colonial 
laws  was  reasonable  or  unreasonable  cannot 
be  discussed  here.  Acts  were  disallowed 
which  were  deemed  prejudicial  to  the  king's 
prerogative,  to  the  property  of  his  subjects, 
and  to  the  trade  and  shipping  of  the  king 
dom,  or  were  contrary  to  the  law  of  England ; 
others  because  they  were  badly  drawn  or  had 
some  verbal  defect  in  the  title  or  elsewhere. 
As  a  rule  the  law  officers  were  very  careful 
in  their  scrutiny,  and  though  they  objected 
to  many  laws  that  were  hostile  to  British 
interests  they  frequently  saved  the  colonies 
from  much  ill-advised  and  hasty  legislation. 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    177 

They  rarely  interfered  to  the  manifest  in 
jury  of  the  colonists  and  frequently  recom 
mended  laws  that  were  not  in  accord  with  a 
strict  interpretation  of  English  statutes. 
On  one  occasion  a  report  read,  "This  is  a 
very  good  act  and  seems  better  calculated 
to  serve  the  end  intended  than  all  our 
statutes  and  amendments."  There  was 
always  the  chance  of  a  further  hearing  before 
the  Privy  Council  committee,  if  the  colony 
so  desired,  though  the  procedure  was  slow, 
cumbersome,  and  vexatious.  The  Board  of 
Trade  sometimes  reversed  the  opinion  of  its 
adviser,  and  the  Privy  Council,  acting  on  the 
advice  of  the  attorney  general,  sometimes 
reversed  the  opinion  of  the  board. 

The   exercise   of   the   royal   right   of   disA 
allowance  was  very  irritating  to  the  colonists,  \ 
not  so  much  because  it  repealed  legislation  as   I 
because  of  the  long  delay  which  kept  the  / 
colony  in  a  constant  state  of  uncertainty/ 
A  number  of  years  might  pass,  particularly 
in  the  royal  colonies,  before  the  royal  decision 
was  known,  and  during  that  time  the  act 
would  be  in  operation  with  the  people  wholly 
in  the  dark  as  to  its  eventual  fate.     Some 
times  the  colony  passed  temporary  laws  that 
were  designed  to  operate  but  for  a  short  time; 
sometimes  they  re-enacted  the  law  under  a 


178          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

slightly  different  form,  but  generally  such 
re-enactments  were  merely  attempts  to  meet 
the  objections  of  the  home  authorities,  and 
were  not  infrequently  due  to  requests  of  the 
board  that  the  law  be  passed  again  with  the 
obnoxious  clause  left  out.  In  a  few  cases  the 
colonists  paid  no  attention  to  the  royal  act  of 
intervention,  but  such  disobedience  was  rare. 
In  general  it  will  be  found  that  the  exercise 
of  the  right  of  disallowance  was  a  salutary 
measure  of  control.  But  the  fact  that  it 
was  heartily  disliked  by  the  colonies  who  were 
unable  successfully  to  evade  it  or  to  prevent 
it  is  in  itself  important.  What  troubled  the 
colonists  was  that  an  authority  outside  of 
themselves  could  limit  their  power  to  legis 
late  in  their  own  behalf,  that  is,  could  prevent 
them  from  doing  what  they  pleased,  whether 
for  their  own  good  or  otherwise. 

The  same  restlessness  under  restraint  is 
seen  with  equal  distinctness  in  the  royal 
right  of  hearing  complaints  and  grievances 
from  America  and  in  receiving  appeals  from 
the  colonial  courts.  Many  of  the  colonies 

sisted  strenuously  this  prerogative  claim 
of  the  crown  to  be  the  court  of  last  resort 
and  the  fountain  of  justice  and  equity  in 
matters  colonial,  and  they  employed  their 
agents  in  London  actively  in  the  business  of 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    179 

bringing  these  appeals  to  naught.  Both 
Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island  denied  with 
vehemence  the  right  of  the  king  to  interfere, 
and  perhaps  in  so  doing  served  to  strengthen 
the  hands  of  their  enemies,  for  in  both  colonies 
the  right  was  exercised  with  very  telling  effect. 
Indeed,  throughout  the  colonial  period,  the 
presentation  of  complaints  and  grievances 
was  a  common  matter,  while  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  particularly  from  1760  to  1770, 
when  the  number  of  cases  reached  134, 
appeals  from  the  colonial  courts  were  made 
with  increasing  frequency.  In  all  these  cases 
the  Board  of  Trade,  which  considered  these 
complaints  and  reported  on  appeals,  when  the 
question  involved  was  one  of  fact  and  not  of 
law,  acted  with  exemplary  fairness.  The 
members  took  great  pains  to  sift  the  complaint 
to  the  bottom  and  to  render  an  impartial  de 
cision.  The  committee  of  the  council,  which 
alone  considered  questions  involving  legal 
procedure  and  interpretation,  did  likewise, 
but  the  difficulty  of  getting  exact  information 
was  very  great  and  in  some  cases,  notably  the 
annulling  of  the  Connecticut  Intestacy  law, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  acted  unwisely. 
When  we  consider  the  distance  from  Amer 
ica  and  the  material  upon  which  the  board 
and  the  council  committee  and  their  advisers 


180          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

had  to  base  their  decisions,  we  may  wonder, 
not  that  they  made  mistakes,  but  that  they 
made  serious  mistakes  so  rarely.  Their  very 
desire  to  be  just  undoubtedly  prolonged 
the  hearings  and  increased  the  impatience 
of  the  colony  for  a  verdict.  The  claim  of  Lord 
Fairfax  to  lands  in  Virginia  was  before  the 
council  for  twelve  years,  the  delays  seemed 
interminable,  while  the  expenses  were  corre 
spondingly  great.  The  Mac  Spar  ran  claim  to 
lands  in  Rhode  Island  waited  nearly  sixteen 
years  before  it  was  finally  rejected,  and  for 
eleven  years  it  lay  pigeon-holed  in  the 
Privy  Council  office.  The  case  of  Connecti 
cut  versus  the  Mohegan  Indians,  which  came 
before  the  council  in  1704,  was  not  finally 
settled  in  favor  of  the  colony  till  1773. 
Most  remarkable  of  all,  though  delayed  by 
diplomatic  negotiations,  was  the  claim  of 
Jeronimy  Clifford,  whose  estate  in  Surinam 
had  been  seized  by  the  Dutch  after  the  ex 
change  of  that  land  for  New  Amsterdam  in 
1667,  and  whose  legal  representatives  were 
still  petitioning  the  council  in  1766,  nearly  a 
century  later.  The  extant  documents  in  the 
case  would  fill  a  bulky  volume.  On  the  other 
hand  many  decisions  were  rendered  promptly, 
within  the  year  after  the  petition  was  re 
ceived,  and  it  is  clear  that  delays  were  not 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    181 

always,  or  even  generally,  the  fault  of  the 
board.  Plaintiffs  and  respondents  were 
equally  dilatory,  and  in  1728  the  council, 
complaining  of  the  failure  of  counsel  to 
attend,  "whereby  great  delays  have  arisen  in 
the  causes  depending  before  them,"  declared 
that  henceforth  the  hearing  would  go  on 
whether  counsel  were  present  or  not.  V 

Inevitably  the  British  government  upheld 
constituted  authority  when  it  could,  and  in 
the  main  supported  the  governors  against 
colonial  complaints.  Nevertheless  there  are 
enough  instances  of  the  removal  of  governors 
for  cause,  as  of  Cranfield  of  New  Hampshire, 
Cony  of  Bermuda,  and  Cornbury  and  Hardy 
of  New  York,  to  show  that  it  would  not  up 
hold  the  governors  in  any  cases  of  malad 
ministration.  But  where  the  governors  were* 
simply  endeavoring  to  carry  out  their  instruc 
tions  and  to  defend  the  royal  prerogative,  the 
board  had  little  patience  with  the  colonial 
side  of  the  case.  For  this  reason,  taking  into 
account  the  whole  question  of  disallowance, 
appeals,  and  complaints,  it  is  probable  that 
in  the  long  run  few  aspects  of  British  con 
trol,  either  trade  laws  or  restrictive  measures, 
contributed  more  to_the  growth  of  an  inde 
pendent  American  spirit  and  oFa  sentiment, 
half"  uncolisciousr~EHough  it  was,  favorable 


182  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

to  an  ultimate  separation  from  Great  Britain, 
than  did  these  various^assertions  of_j*oyjil^ 
authority, _legallv_ right^thpugh  they  jwere. 
And  tne  exercise  of  this  authority  was  the 
more  effective  because  in  so  many  cases  it 
was  successfully  enforced. 

In  another  legal  matter,  the  extension  of 
the  English  common  and  statute  law  into 
the  colonies,  the  results  were  equally  inter 
esting.  The  refusal  of  the  colonists  to  admit 
English  law  in  its  entirety  was  due,  not  so 
much  to  positive  resistance,  as  to  the  inability 
of  a  new  country  to  make  use  of  laws  mani 
festly  adapted  to  a  higher  and  more  complex 
order  of  society.  Despite  the  theory  of  many 
English  lawyers  that  the  common  law  of 
England  went  wherever  the  colonists  went, 
the  fact  remains  that  English  law  was  form 
ally  adopted  by  statute  in  but  one  of  the 
colonies,  South  Carolina  (1712).  New  Eng 
land  rejected  it  altogether  and  made  the 
word  of  God  the  guide  of  its  courts  and  the 
basis  of  court  decisions,  and  with  some  im 
portant  exceptions  refused  in  the  beginning 
to  admit  any  outside  legal  principles  as 
governing  its  action  in  any  respect  whatever. 
In  other  colonies  the  common  law  and  prac 
tice  of  England  frequently  prevailed,  but  all 
the  early  law  was  informal  and  popular,  based 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    18S 

on  a  natural  sense  of  justice  and  equity 
rather  than  on  formal  principles  already 
defined.  New  York  and  the  southern  colo 
nies  generally  accepted  the  common  law, 
where  it  was  suited  to  the  circumstances  of 
their  life  and  government,  but  they  all 
departed  in  many  essential  particulars  from 
English  precedents  and  procedure. 

As  the  colonies  became  more  settled  and 
frontier  conditions  gave  way  to  more  conser 
vative  forms  of  social  order,  common-law 
rules  entered  more  largely  into  their  legal 
relations,  though  certain  colonies,  such  as 
Pennsylvania,  introduced  modifications  of 
considerable  moment  into  the  history  of 
law  in  this  country.  Indeed  we  may  say, 
that  before  the  Revolution  American  com 
mon  law  had  reached  a  more  advanced  po 
sition,  as  regards  fairness,  simplicity,  and 
rapidity  of  procedure,  than  had  the  common 
law  of  England,  and  it  is  a  noteworthy  fact 
that  such  colonies  as  Pennsylvania,  Virginia, 
and  South  Carolina,  where  no  attempt  was 
made  deliberately  to  throw  off  connection 
with  the  principles  and  practice  of  English 
law,  bred  lawyers  of  greater  ability  and  wider 
legal  knowledge  than  did  New  England  dur 
ing  the  same  period.  The  latter  colonies 
claimed  too  great  a  legal  independence. 


184          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

Statute  law,  except  as  it  referred  to  the 
colonies  specifically  or  was  adopted  by  a 
colonial  legislature  as  the  law  of  the  colony, 
was  generally  rejected  in  America.  In  most 
of  the  colonies  very  few  statutes  of  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  were 
ever  adopted  or  treated  as  binding  on  the 
courts.  It  was  easy  to  keep  out  the  statutes; 
they  were  printed  documents,  often  very 
long  and  bearing  special  titles,  such  as  the 
Test  Act,  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  the  Trien 
nial  Act,  and  the  Toleration  Act.  They 
could  not  be  smuggled  in  without  detection, 
and  very  few  ever  did  get  in  that  from  the 
colonists'  point  of  view  were  undesirable. 
The  Test  Act  was  enforced  in  some  cases, 
though  the  attorney  general  of  England,  when 
the  question  was  presented  for  his  opinion, 
said  that  it  did  not  apply  to  the  colonies. 
The  Triennial  Act  was  adopted  more  widely, 
and  the  Toleration  Act  was  generally  ap 
proved.  But  the_common  law  was  another 
matter;  it  was  unwritten  law,  it  was  custom 
ary  law,  it  could  be  brought  in  in  men's  minds 
and  could  be  used  almost  without  suspicion. 
It  came  in,  and  kept  coming  in,  in  larger  and 
larger  quantities,  as  more  men  came  over 
who  were  learned  in  the  law  or  colonials  went 
to  England  and  were  trained  in  the  law. 


STRUGGLE  FOR  SELF-CONTROL    185 

Finally  it  came  in  in  the  form  of  a  great  book, 
the  Commentaries  of  Blackstone,  just  before 
the  Revolution,  and  some  2500  copies,  we 
are  told,  were  bought  in  the  colonies. 

The  legal  independence  of  the  coloniesjjes 
in  flie  tact  that  the  common  law  was  never 
forced  orTthe  colonies  by  any  of  the  national 
law  courts  at  Westminster  Hall;  it  was  dis 
pensed  in  American  courts  only.  As  it  devel 
oped  it  departed  from  its  original  form  and 
became  American  common  law,  not  English, 
though  its  main  features  had  their  origin  on 
English  soil.  The  English  law  in  America 
won  its  victory  over  the  Roman  Law  planted 
in  those  parts  of  the  present  United  States 
that  were  settled  by  the  Spaniards  or  the 
Dutch,  but  the  colonists  won  their  victory 
over  the  English  law  when  they  accepted  only 
such  parts  of  it  as  they  manifestly  needed. 
Legal  unity  throughout  the  British  empire 
did  not  exist  in  the  eighteenth  century. 
Legal  separation  had  already  begun  when  the* 
colonists  passed  laws  that  even  the  legal  ad 
visers  of  the  crown  acknowledged  were  neces 
sary  to  the  existence  of  the  colony,  even  though 
such  laws  were  not  in  accord  with  the 
spending  law  in  England. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

EVASION   OF   THE  ACTS   OF   PARLIAMENT 

WHILE  the  colonists  were  showing  their 
determination  not  to  be  bound  by  the  terms 
of  the  king's  authority  and  were  resisting  to 
a  greater  or  less  degree  the  royal  right  of  dis 
allowance  and  appeal  and  the  introduction 
of  English  law,  they  were  also  displaying  a 
similar  determination  to  be  free  from  the 
bonds  of  the  British  system  in  matters  of 
trade  and  commerce.  In  this  respect,  at 
least,  they  were  defying  the  power  of  par 
liament,  for  since  1660  the  legislative  body 
of  Great  Britain  had  passed  a  great  many 
acts  limiting  trade,  forbidding  manufactures, 
encouraging  the  production  of  raw  mate 
rials,  and  providing  for  the  proper  adminis 
tration  of  the  measures  thus  laid  down.  No 
colonist  ever  seriously  denied  the  right  of 
parliament  to  legislate  in  the  interest  of 
England's  commercial  supremacy,  or  to 
take  such  steps  as  were  necessary  for  the 
protection  of  British  industries  from  colo 
nial  competition.  They  accepted  this  long 
series  of  parliamentary  acts,  not  always 
without  protest,  but  without  denial  and 

186 


PARLIAMENTARY  ACTS  187 

without  serious  demur.  In  endeavoring  to 
control  colonial  trade  and  to  limit  colonial 
industry,  the  British  government  was  merely 
upholding  its  policy,  so  often  declared,  of 
maintaining  the  dependency  of  the  colonies 
on  the  crown  as  essential  to  the  prosperity 
of  the  mother  country.  It  tried  by  every 
means  in  its  power  to  encourage  the  colo 
nists  to  devote  their  whole  time  to  the  pro 
duction  of  raw  materials.  It  took  off  all 
export  duties  on  manufactured  woollen  goods 
and  iron  ware,  that  the  colonists  might  obtain 
these  articles  from  England  as  cheaply  as 
possible.  It  removed  the  duty  on  colonial 
raw  iron  imported  to  England,  that  the  iron 
industry  in  America  might  be  encouraged. 
It  prohibited  the  raising  of  tobacco  in  Eng 
land  and  increased  the  duty  on  Spanish 
tobacco,  that  the  colonists  might  have  a 
complete  monopoly  of  the  English  tobacco 
market.  When  it  was  seen  that  the  expor 
tation  of  rice  from  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia  to  Portugal  was  not  detrimental 
to  British  commerce  and  was  directly  bene 
ficial  to  the  colonies,  the  government  per 
mitted  this  staple  to  be  carried  to  the  con 
tinent  south  of  Cape  Finisterre,  that  is,  to 
Spain,  Portugal,  and  the  cities  of  the  Medi 
terranean.  Later  it  extended  the  market  to 


188  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

include  Africa,  the  African  islands,  and  South 
America. 

I  Probably  in  the  long  run  the  navigation 
I  acts,  with  their  requirements  regarding  Brit- 
I  ish  manned  ships,  enumerated  commodities, 
and  foreign  manufactures  imported  into 
/  America,  rested  but  Jightly  on  the  colonies. 
Certainly  for  the  greater  parToFlEe :  colonial 
period  the  natural  market  for  sugar  and 
tobacco,  the  chief  colonial  products,  was 
England,  and  England  gave  to  these  staples 
a  complete  monopoly  of  her  market.  How 
far  the  natural  inclinations  of  the  colonies 
were  thwarted  by  the  navigation  acts  and 
how  far  these  acts  limited  their  commercial 
freedom,  not  in  theory,  but  in  actual  expe 
rience,  are  questions  that  are  hardly  capable 
of  satisfactory  answers.  Individual  com 
plaints  were  frequently  heard  and  cases 
of  individual  hardship  can  easily  be  found 
^to  illustrate  the  argument  for  the  colonies, 
but  it  is  not  reasonable  to  conclude  that 
colonial  trade  as  a  whole  was  seriously  ham 
pered  because  the  restricting  of  the  market 
V  wrought  injury  in  specific  cases.  The  south 
ern  and  West  Indian  colonies  prospered 
under  the  navigation  acts,  and  so  different 
were  the  physiographic  conditions  that  what 
benefited  the  tropical  colonies  was  likely  to 


PARLIAMENTARY  ACTS  189 

prove  prejudicial  to  the  middle  and  north 
ern  colonies  and  vice  versa.     * 


Act  of  1733,  which  was  designed  to  improve 
tn^condrtibn  of  the  British  planters  in  the 
West  Indies,  was  a  matter  of  great  concern  — 
to  New  England,  while  the  clause  regarding 
enumerated  commodities,  which  concerned 
the  whole  southern  range  of  colonies,  scarcely 
affected  New  England  at  all. 

The  methods  employed  to  carry  out  the\l 
acts  troubled  the  colonists  more  than  thel\ 
acts  themselves.    As  early  as  1676  collectors  »  ^ 
and  other  customs  officials  appeared  in  Amer 
ica,  and  during  the  forty  years  that  followed 
they   were   extremely   pertinacious   in   their 
attempts   to   perform   their   duties.     About 
1700  the  collectors  were  aided  by  courts  of 
vice   admiralty,   the   organization   and   pro 
cedure  of  which  were  those  of  the  civil  not 
the  common  law,  and  were  in  consequence 
as  thoroughly  disliked   in  America  as   they 
were  in  England,  because  they  seemed  to  en 
croach  upon  the  jurisdiction  of  the  common- 
law  courts.     During  the  first  quarter  of  the  0 
eighteenth   century   the  customs   and   vice- 
admiralty  officials  were  a  constant  source  of 
irritation  to  the  colonists,  not  merely  because 
these  officials  tried  to  collect  duties  and  con 
demn  ships  suspected  of  illegal  trade,  but 


190  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

because  they  did  so  with  an  excess  of  zeal 
which  led  them  into  frequent  conflicts  with 
the    colonists.      They    not    only    concerned 
themselves  with  their  legitimate  duties,  but 
they  also  constituted  themselves  censors  of 
colonial  management  in  general,   and  they 
1  were  disliked   quite  as  much  because  they 
1  were  busy-bodies  as  because  they  were  royal 
j  officials.    After  1715  much  of  the  friction  was 
removed.     The  later  officials  showed  less  in 
clination  to  find  fault  and  in  general  proved 
a    slight  check    upon    colonial    freedom    in 
matters  of  trade. 

The  customs  system  in  America,  while 
it  accomplished  something  in  the  way  of 
adding  to  the  royal  exchequer  a  small 
amount  of  revenue,  proved  very  lax,  and 
though  the  Board  of  Trade  often  sent  man 
datory  letters  both  to  the  governors  and  the 
collectors  to  carry  out  their  instructions,  it 
was  entirely  helpless  when  it  came  to  the 
test  of  compelling  obedience.  Probably 
/•  no  single  collector  or  surveyor  in  the  colonies 
was  able  to  live  up  to  the  orders  that  he 
received,  and  it  is  also  probable  that  few 
of  them  made  any  serious  effort  to  do  so. 
.Royal  officials  in  the  colonies  were  not  well 
rewarded  either  in  pay  or  gratuities  for 
what  they  accomplished,  and  were  frequently 


PARLIAMENTARY  ACTS  191 

turned  aside  from  the  strict  performance  of^^-^ 
their  duties  by  the  opportunities  for  gain 
which  connivance  furnished.  Salaries  were 
often  in  arrears,  fees  were  controlled  by  the 
assemblies,  and  the  men  who  actually  did 
the  work  in  America  were  in  a  large  number 
of  cases  deputies  of  those  who  received  the 
original  appointments  and  drew  the  highest 
pay.  It  was  an  age  of  sinecures,  reversions, 
and  pluralities  in  both  church  and  state. 

We  cannot  measure  and  we  probably  will 
never  be  able  to  measure  the  exact  amount 
of  smuggling  and  illicit  trade  that  went  on 
in  America  during  our  colonial  era.  It 
certainly  was  no  greater  and  was  probably 
far  less  than  that  which  went  on  in  England, 
Ireland,  and  Scotland  at  the  same  time,  at 
Londonderry,  Greenock,  Ayr,  Dumfries, 
Penzance,  and  the  Channel  Islands.  The 
colonists  did  trade  illegally  with  Scotland, 
Ireland,  and  the  Continent  (Holland,  Spain, 
and  Portugal),  with  the  Channel  Islands  and 
the  French  and  Dutch  West  Indies;  they 
smuggled  into  America  manufactured  goods, 
wines,  and  brandies  from  foreign  countries;  \ 
and  they  did  these  things  with  the  coopera-  /^ 
tion  of  the  very  officials  that  were  sent  from 
England  to  prevent  it.  But  the  number  of 
such  breaches  of  the  acts,  as  compared  with 


192          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

the  whole  volume  of  colonial  trade,  was 
probably  not  large,  and  smuggling  in  Amer 
ica  never  took  the  form  of  a  bloody  war  such 
as  was  fought  along  the  English  and  Scottish 
coasts  in  the  eighteenth  century,  when  the 
secretary  at  war  had  to  send  dragoons  into 
the  counties  to  assist  the  excise  men  against 
the  smugglers.  Illicit  trading  was  done  in  an 
age  when  official  morality  was  at  a  low  ebb 
and  wThen  bribery  and  the  iniquitous  fee 
system  were  closely  related  the  one  to  the 
other.  Many  of  the  lesser  officials  in  Amer 
ica  were  dependent  on  fees  for  their  support 
and  their  palms  were  always  itching  for  the 
wherewithal  to  live.  The  very  fact  that  the 
colonies  grew  greatly  in  wealth  and  com 
fort  from  1715  to  1760  is  sufficient  proof  that 
neither  the  navigation  acts  nor  the  restric 
tive  measures  seriously  interfered  with  their 
natural  commercial  growth. 

The  northern  and  middle  colonies  never 
adapted  themselves  naturally  to  the  British 
colonial  and  commercial  scheme  as  did  the 
southern  and  West  Indian  colonies,  and 
every  effort  to  compel  them  to  do  so  ended 
practically  in  failure.  The  trade  of  New 
England,  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania  was 
not  so  much  with  England  as  with  the 
Mediterranean,  the  Azores,  and  particularly 


PARLIAMENTARY  ACTS  193 

with  the  British  and  foreign  We,st  Indies, 
which  they  supplied  with  lumber,  provisions, 
cattle,  horses,  and  fish.  By  this  trade  the 
colonies  north  of  Maryland  gained  the 
ready  money,  which  they  could  procure  in 
no  other  way,  whereby  to  purchase  of  Eng 
land  the  large  quantities  of  manufactures 
which  they  received  yearly  and  for  which 
they  paid  in  cash  or  by  bills  of  exchange. 
To  restrict  or  prevent  this  trade  was  to  im-l 
peril  northern  prosperity,  yet  in  the  eighteenth  \ 
century  England  was  willing  to  do  so.  Owing/ 
to  circumstances  connected  with  the  eco 
nomic  life  of  these  islands  the  British  colonies 
in  the  West  Indies  were  suffering  from  the 
competition  of  their  neighbors,  the  Dutch 
and  French  islands,  who  were  able  to  under 
sell  them  in  the  Continental  and  colonial 
markets.  Colonial  ships  from  New  York  or 
Philadelphia  would  carry  their  provisions, 
horses,  and  lumber  to  Jamaica,  for  example, 
and  there  instead  of  exchanging  their  prod 
ucts  for  molasses  and  sugar  would  sell  for 
cash  and  pass  on  for  their  return  cargo  to 
the  French  or  Dutch  sugar  islands,  where 
they  could  buy  at  better  rates.  The  British 
planters,  despoiled  of  a  profitable  market 
and  stripped  of  their  coin,  were  threatened 
with  ruin  and  sought  the  aid  of  parliament. 


194          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

After  many  efforts  they  finally  obtained  the 
passage  of  the  Molasses  Act  of  1733,  whereby 
the  colonists  were  compelled  to  pay  heavy 
duties  on  all  molasses,  sugar,  and  rum  ob 
tained  from  the  foreign  sugar  islands. 

Had  the  act  been  enforced  it  would  have 
cut  off  the  northern  colonies  from  one  of  the 
most  important  sources  of  their  wealth,  be 
cause,  as  New  York  claimed  in  an  address  to 
the  king,  the  British  islands  could  not  take 
all  their  staple  products,  and  to  limit  the 
colonial  market  would  lead,  not  only  to  a 
glut  of  their  own  commodities  and  a  conse 
quent  fall  of  prices,  but  also  to  a  cutting  off 
of  a  neighboring  market  where  money 
could  be  spent  to  better  advantage  than  in 
the  British  colonies,  Jamaica,  Barbadoes, 
and  the  Leeward  Islands.  To  limit  the  mar 
ket  to  the  latter  islands  would  mean  inevi 
tably  a  rise  in  the  prices  of  sugar,  rum,  and 
molasses  and  a  draining  of  the  northern 
colonies  of  what  little  coin  they  had.  While 
exact  evidence  of  the  evasion  of  the  act  of 
1733  is  difficult  to  obtain,  it  is  clear  from 
contemporary  expressions  of  opinion  that  the 
northern  colonies  continued  to  trade  as 
before  with  the  foreign  West  Indies.  The 
colonists  had  to  break  the  law  in  order  to 
live. 


PARLIAMENTARY  ACTS  195 

England,  however,  made  notable  efforts 
to  bring  the  northern  colonies  within  the 
terms  of  her  own  policy  and  to  direct  their 
energies  into  the  proper  channel,  the  raising 
of  raw  materials.  Though  the  northerners 
could  furnish  neither  sugar  nor  tobacco 
they  had  wide  forests  from  which,  in  the  eyes 
of  those  concerned,  endless  supplies  of  naval 
stores  could  be  procured.  Urged  on  by 
merchants,  factors,  and  colonial  governors, 
the  Board  of  Trade  recommended  to  parlia 
ment  the  passage  of  acts  providing  for  heavy 
bounties  on  all  those  things  that  the  navy 
needed  and  which  the  colonies  might  pro 
duce.  The  efforts  in  this  instance  were  suc 
cessful  and  parliament  passed  the  desired 
legislation.  Then  the  board  took  up  the 
prosecution  of  the  work  in  earnest.  It  sent 
over  commissioners  to  teach  the  colonists 
how  to  prepare  pitch,  tar,  and  turpentine, 
and  how  to  grow  hemp;  it  obtained  the 
passage  of  another  act  reserving  for  the  use 
of  the  navy  all  mast  trees  of  a  certain  di 
mension,  in  woods  not  in  private  hands 
growing  north  of  Pennsylvania;  it  caused 
to  be  appointed  a  special  surveyor  of  the 
woods,  whose  business  it  was  to  range  over 
this  northern  territory  and  to  mark  with 
the  king's  broad  arrow  trees  that  were  suited 


196  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

to  the  royal  purpose.  And  it  did  these  things 
not  once  but  many  times,  pursuing  its  pur 
pose  with  energy  and  determination  for 
forty  years. 

But  scarcely  one  of  the  measures  really 
succeeded  as  far  as  the  northern  colonies 
were  concerned.  The  southern  colonies, 
notably  South  Carolina,  sent  over  a  good 
deal  of  tar  and  pitch,  but  New  England  and 
New  York  were  not  to  be  turned  from  their 
natural  bent  toward  agriculture  and  the 
homespun  industries,  and  the  people  of 
New  Hampshire  and  Massachusetts  treated 
the  king's  orders  pretty  much  as  they  pleased. 
The  lumber  trade  of  New  England  was  as 
important  as  the  provision  trade,  and  formed 
a  necessary  and  component  part  of  a  life 
that  was  intimately  bound  up  with  ship 
building  and  the  providing  of  all  the  boards, 
planks,  pipe-staves,  beams,  and  clapboards 
used  in  the  West  Indies  for  building  and 
other  purposes.  The  production  of  naval 
stores  was  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  detri 
mental  to  both  these  interests  and  was  ham 
pered  by  a  consistent  policy  of  evasion  and 
obstruction.  The  contractors  employed  by 
the  surveyors  of  the  woods  and  the  men 
licensed  by  the  crown  to  fell  trees  in  New 
England  had  their  men  driven  off  by  the 


PARLIAMENTARY  ACTS  197 

Indians,  were  sued  by  the  owners  of  lands 
for  damages  done,  or  were  obstructed  by  the 
loggers  who  on  several  occasions  ducked 
their  employees  in  the  rivers  of  New  England. 
The  loggers  outwitted  the  royal  officers  and 
cut  down  the  best  trees,  while  the  proprie 
tors  of  lands  either  destroyed  the  trees  when 
felled  or  obstructed  their  passage  to  the 
waterside.  The  colonists  brought  action 
against  the  royal  workmen  for  felling  mast 
trees  and  for  cutting  down  other  trees  in 
order  to  make  a  road  for  hauling,  and  in  both 
cases  were  able  to  recover  damages.  Suits 
for  trespass  were  constantly  pending  in  the 
New  England  courts.  The  New  England 
governors  upheld  very  lukewarmly  the  royal 
commands;  the  colonial  courts  could  not 
be  got  to  convict  offenders;  and  the  inhab 
itants  in  general  defied  the  royal  officials, 
threatened  their  lives,  and  ridiculed  their 
pretensions.  The  conflict  went  on  nearly 
to  1760,  and  in  the  end  the  royal  authority 
was  compelled  to  give  way  before  the  deter 
mined  resistance  of  New  England.  As  far 
as  concerned  the  raising  of  naval  stores,  the  \ 
reservation  of  mast  trees,  and  the  trade  with 
the  foreign  West  Indies,  the  economic  inde-  I 
pendence  of  New  England  was  very  largely  / 
maintained.  / 


198          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

No  phase  of  colonial  history  shows  more 
clearly  the  situation  that  existed  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  than  the 
persistent  trade  which  the  northern  colo 
nies,  and  to  some  extent  the  southern  also, 
carried  on  with  the  enemy  during  the  French 
and  Indian  war.  From  1756  to  1761, 
when  Great  Britain  was  fighting  in  India 
and  America  and  on  the  Continent,  was 
subsidizing  Frederick  the  Great,  and  was 
paying  out  large  sums  to  recompense  the 
American  colonies  for  their  share  in  the 
attacks  on  Canada,  the  colonial  merchants, 
>hip-owners,  and  captains  were  engaged  in 
commerce  with  the  French  to  England's 
injury  and  their  own  profit.  Among  the 
French  West  Indies,  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
chiefly  at  New  Orleans,  and  along  the 
northern  Canadian  frontier,  colonial  provi 
sions  were  carried  to  the  enemy  by  means  of 
every  channel  and  opportunity  that  the  war 
afforded.  Colonial  merchant  ships  went  to 
the  French  West  Indies  under  flags  of  truce 
for  the  exchange  of  prisoners,  but  instead 
of  French  prisoners  they  carried  contraband 
of  war;  and  instead  of  returning  with  their 
own  people  freed  by  the  exchange  they 
brought  back  coin  and  sugar.  They  flocked 
to  the  Dutch  island  of  St.  Eustatius  and  the 


PARLIAMENTARY  ACTS  109 

Spanish  town  of  Monte  Christi,  and  these 
West  Indian  harbors  became  veritable  clear 
ing  houses  of  traffic  with  French  merchant 
men  and  ships  of  war.  All  the  northern 
colonies  engaged  in  this  business  without 
compunction,  Rhode  Island  and  Pennsylvania 
being  the  greatest  offenders,  though  even 
Virginia  and  South  Carolina  could  not  keep 
clear  of  this  alluring  opportunity  of  making 
a  profit  at  the  expense  of  their  allegiance  to 
the  British  crown.  The  trade  with  New 
Orleans  enabled  the  French  to  extend  their 
influence  over  the  Creeks  and  Cherokees 
in  the  south  and  so  to  menace  the  South 
Carolina  and  Georgia  frontiers;  the  hundreds 
of  colonial  ships  that  went  to  the  West  Indies, 
not  only  enabled  the  French  fleets  to  stock 
themselves  with  provisions  and  to  fit  out 
privateers  against  the  English,  but  they  also 
saved  the  French  colonies  from  the  danger 
of  being  starved  into  surrender. 

The  results  of  this  illegal  trade  with  the 
enemy,  as  far  as  the  British  were  concerned, 
were  twofold  in  their  injury:  they  rendered 
provisions  scarce  in  America  and  prevented 
the  armies  of  Amherst  and  Forbes  from  ob 
taining  an  adequate  supply;  and  they  raised 
the  price  of  provisions  to  such  a  height  that 
it  was  cheaper  to  send  the  provisions  from 


200          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

England  than  it  was  to  buy  them  in  America. 
Zealously    as    the   British    navy    sought    to 
break  up  the  practice,  it  was  never  successful, 
for  though  often  checking  the  trade  for  a 
time  it  was  outwitted  in  the  end  by  the  inge 
nuity  of  the  colonists.     The  significance  of 
this  extraordinary  aspect  of  American  activity 
during   the   war   lies,   not   so  much   in   the 
/   independent  commercial  spirit  which  it  dis 
played,    as   in   the   fact   that   the   colonists 
I    seemed  wholly  unaware  of  the  disloyalty  to 
\England   that   it   involved.     They   allowed 
their  eagerness  for  commercial  gain  to  cloud 
their  sense  of  obligation  toward  the  mother 
country  in  time  of  war.     Perhaps  it  is  only 
fair  to  say  that  the  determination  of  the 
colonies  to  neglect  imperial  interests  to  the 
advantage  of  their  own  prosperity  was  but 
the  counterpart  of  Great  Britain's  declared 
I  purpose  of  using  the  colonies  as  a  source  of 
/  profit  to  herself.     In  one  sense  the  attitude 
/  of   the   colonies   was   merely   a   defiant   but 
f   logical  expression  of  resistance  to  the  policy 
I    which  Great  Britain  had  been  endeavoring 
to  carry  out  for  a  century. 

Similar  relations  between  Great  Britain 
and  the  colonies  in  the  eighteenth  century 
could  be  discovered  in  other  directions. 
Difficulties  over  colonial  boundaries,  not  one 


PARLIAMENTARY  ACTS  201 

of  which  had  been  settled  in  1700,  often  led 
to  royal  intervention,  whereby  colonial  legis 
lation  was  invalidated  by  the  Privy  Council, 
acting  on  the  recommendation  of  the  Board 
of  Trade  setting  as  a  kind  of  high  court  of 
arbitration.  England's  financial  policy,  as 
seen  in  the  attempts  to  regulate  the  coin  of 
the  colonies  in  1704  and  the  constant  dis 
allowing  of  all  acts  passed  in  the  colonies 
for  the  issue  of  bills  of  credit  or  paper  money, 
was  wrecked  because  the  colonies  would 
conform  to  it  as  rarely  as  possible.  The 
attitude  of  the  British  government  was  deter 
mined  by  commercial  requirements  and  not 
by  any  adequate  understanding  of  what 
the  colonies  wanted  or  ought  to  have.  The 
persisting  repeal  of  acts  of  this  character  irri 
tated  the  colonial  assemblies,  which  may 
not  have  been  very  wise  but  which  were  at 
least  more  familiar  with  colonial  finances 
than  was  the  Board  of  Trade.  An  age 
which  saw  the  successful  operation  of  the 
Bank  of  England  might  have  been  inter 
ested  to  do  something  to  provide  for  the 
colonies  a  more  stable  form  of  circulating 
medium  than  that  which  they  possessed. 
But  no  steps  in  that  direction  were  ever 
taken  by  the  board,  because  its  interest 
in  colonial  finance  was  limited  entirely 


202          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

to     the     commercial     welfare     of     British 
merchants. 

In  view  of  the  ends  which  British  policy 
sought  to  attain,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
loyalty  to  England  in  the  period  before  the 
Revolution  did  not  exist  among  the  colo 
nists  as  a  whole.  Even  though,  in  official 
utterances,  colonial  leaders  proclaimed  loudly 
their  loyalty  to  the  crown,  and  even  though 
such  prominent  men  as  Adams  and  Jefferson, 
in  public  address,  gave  out  words  expressive 
of  loyal  sentiment,  the  words  were  unac 
companied  by  deeds  and  by  that  spirit  of 
sacrifice  without  which  true  loyalty  cannot 
v  exist.  Colonial  records  fail  to  disclose  a 
single  instance  where  the  colonies,  through 
their  assemblies  or  through  the  action  of 
any  considerable  number  of  their  people, 
yielded  voluntarily  and  willingly  on  any 
question  where  the  legal  rights  of  the  mother 
country  came  into  conflict  with  the  deter 
mination  of  the  colonists  to  control  their  own 
affairs.  From  the  beginning,  whether  the 
immediate  authority  over  them  was  a  com 
pany,  a  proprietor,  or  the  crown,  the  colonists 
in  one  way  or  another,  at  different  times  and 
under  different  conditions,  made  every  effort 
to  rid  themselves  of  every  right,  practice,  or 
institution  that  prevented  a  free  exercise  of 


PARLIAMENTARY  ACTS  203 

their  own  government  or  ran  counter  to 
their  own  economic  needs.  Where  the  inter 
ests  of  Great  Britain  did  not  clash  with  the 
material  or  political  interests  of  the  colo 
nists,  the  latter  conformed  to  acts  and  in 
structions  emanating  from  parliament  or  king, 
but  where  the  advantages  were  manifestly 
with  the  mother  country  alone  the  colonial 
opposition  was  determined  and  unceasing. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  England  and  the 
colonies  should  have  been  in  conflict  when 
their  aims  were  so  diametrically  opposed. 
England's  interest  in  the  colonies  was  but 
one  of  many  concerns  that  perplexed  the 
statesmen  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Many 
of  the  controversies,  due  to  orders  and 
instructions  drawn  up  three  thousand  miles 
away  and  based  upon  a  somewhat  doctrin 
aire  view  of  the  place  that  colonies  ought 
to  occupy  in  the  plan  of  a  great  empire,  were 
only  half-heartedly  supported  by  those  en 
trusted  with  royal  authority.  To  British 
officials  colonial  questions  were  a  thing  apart, 
to  the  colonists  the  principles  involved  were 
essential  to  their  very  existence.  Self-con 
trol  became  the  breath  of  their  life,  the  most 
vital  part  of  their  effort  to  build  up  strong 
and  healthy  communities,  in  which  com 
fort,  happiness,  and  solvency  should  be  the 


204  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

determining  features  of  their  success.  Hun 
dreds  of  such  efforts  in  the  direction  of 
independence,  expended  during  a  period  of 
a  century  and  a  half,  were  creating,  line 
upon  line,  a  situation  in  which  independence 
of  outside  control  was  becoming  the  most 
conspicuous  feature  of  their  history.  In 
this  way  was  colonial  independence  won, 
before  a  single  American  leader  had  dared 
to  deny  his  allegiance,  to  raise  his  voice  in 
behalf  of  separation,  or  to  take  up  arms  in  a 
military  struggle  for  the  severing  of  the  legal 
ties  which  bound  him  to  the  mother  country. 


CHAPTER  IX 

ATTEMPTS    AT    COLONIAL   UNION 

THE  movement  of  the  colonies  toward 
independence  of  the  mother  country  in  all 
that  concerned  their  daily  life  and  govern 
ment  was  not  necessarily  accompanied  by 
a  corresponding  movement  toward  union 
among  themselves  or  the  growth  of  a  dis 
tinctive  American  national  feeling.  In  the 
seventeenth  century  the  colonial  settlements 
were  small,  isolated,  and  obscure.  They 
were  confined  to  the  coast  or  to  the  lower 
waters  of  the  navigable  rivers,  each  in  a 
world  by  itself,  surrounded  by  forests  that 
were  difficult  to  traverse,  and  confronted  by 
frequent  dangers  from  wild  animals  and  the 
Indians.  Rivers  and  coast  waters  were  the 
customary  highways  of  travel,  and,  except 
along  certain  beaten  paths,  few  were  suffi 
ciently  venturesome  to  pass  by  land  from 
one  colony  to  another. 

New  England  with  its  frequent  migrations 
and  planting  of  new  towns  developed  a 
community  of  interest  which  led  to  repeated 
journey  ings  from  one  section  to  another. 
Communication  between  Long  Island,  New 

205 


206  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

York,  Albany,  and  East  New  Jersey  was  not 
difficult,  and  the  interchange  of  visits  and 
staple  products  was  a  fairly  common  occur 
rence.  Similarly  West  New  Jersey,  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  Delaware  were  in  close  connection, 
for  the  waters  of  the  Delaware  river  made 
intercommunication  an  essential  part  of  the 
life  of  the  middle  colonies.  Maryland  and 
Virginia  stood  in  a  similar  relationship,  for 
the  wide  Chesapeake  formed  a  natural 
highway  for  the  traveller,  and  offered  a  con 
venient  means  of  commercial  intercourse. 
From  Virginia  to  North  Carolina  was  a 
journey  fraught  with  difficulties,  while  South 
Carolina,  far  off  to  the  southward,  was  more 
remote  from  the  northern  colonies  than  it 
was  from  the  West  Indies,  with  which  it 
stood  on  terms  of  close  commercial  fellow 
ship. 

Within  its  own  environment,  each  colony, 
settled  at  different  times  and  under  different 
•f  circumstances,  was  working  out  its  own 
destiny  with  little  regard  for  the  others. 
Each  had  its  own  problems  to  solve,  which 
absorbed  the  time  and  attention  of  its 
people,  and  inevitably  strong  sentiments  of 
individualism  and  particularism  tended  to 
dominate  its  actions.  These  sentiments  were 
strengthened  by  intercolonial  rivalries  and 


ATTEMPTS  AT  COLONIAL  UNION    207 

disputes  which  manifested  themselves  during 
the  greater  part  of  the  colonial  era. 

Boundary  difficulties  began  with  the  grant 
ing  of  charters  to  Maryland  and  Pennsyl 
vania  and  continued  to  create  friction  among 
the  colonies  for  more  than  a  century.  Be 
tween  Maryland  and  Virginia,  Maryland 
and  Pennsylvania,  Pennsylvania  and  New 
York,  the  trouble  first  appeared,  while  Massa 
chusetts  was  at  one  time  or  another  in  serious 
conflict  with  New  Hampshire,  Rhode  Island, 
and  Connecticut.  New  York  was  a  long 
time  settling  its  boundary  line  with  New 
England,  and  after  much  bickering  Virginia 
and  North  Carolina  reached  a  satisfactory 
settlement,  and  the  world  obtained  a  delight 
ful  piece  of  colonial  literature,  William  Byrd's 
History  of  the  Dividing  Line,  first  published 
in  1841.  In  nearly  every  instance  the  home 
government  was  called  in  to  appoint  a  com 
mission  and  settle  the  difficulty.  The  colonies 
also  discriminated  against  each  other  in  the 
imposition  of  customs  dues,  which  led  to 
retaliatory  legislation  that  sometimes  devel 
oped  into  petty  commercial  wars.  There 
was  no  common  currency  in  the  colonies, 
and  each  had  its  own  standards  of  value, 
which  prevented  ready  commercial  trans 
actions,  particularly  after  the  adoption  of 


208          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

bills  of  credit  and  the  consequent  deprecia 
tion  of  paper  currency.  Massachusetts  on 
one  occasion  passed  a  law  excluding  all  New 
Hampshire  paper  money  from  the  colony, 
and  Penn  early  sent  a  protest  to  England 
against  certain  laws  of  Maryland  imposing 
duties  on  commodities  from  Pennsylvania. 

The  tendency  of  the  larger  colonies  to 
assume  an  overbearing  attitude  toward  their 
weaker  neighbors  found  illustration  in  the 
seeming  desire  of  Massachusetts  and  Con 
necticut  to  eliminate  Ehode  Island,  as  they 
had  already  done  Plymouth  and  New  Haven, 
and  in  the  determination  of  New  York  to 
checkmate  the  attempt  of  New  Jersey  to 
obtain  independent  commercial  privileges. 
Pennsylvania  was  none  too  gracious  toward 
Delaware,  and  Virginia  viewed  with  scorn 
the  settlers  of  North  Carolina  as  vagabonds 
and  pirates.  The  yoking  of  New  York  and 
New  Jersey,  and  Massachusetts  and  New 
Hampshire  under  common  governors  led  to 
determined  efforts  at  separation,  which  when 
effected  left  the  colonies  farther  apart  than 
ever.  Between  the  south  and  the  north  there 
prevailed  little  harmony  of  sentiment,  for  the 
Virginians  early  displayed  disdain  for  the 
"Saints  of  New  England,"  whom  they  dis 
liked  for  their  pettiness  in  trade  and  shrewd- 


ATTEMPTS  AT  COLONIAL  UNION    209 

ness  even  to  sharpness  in  business  dealings. 
As  upholders  of  aristocratic  standards,  the 
royal  prerogative,  and  the  Anglican  church, 
the  southerners  had  little  tolerance  for  the 
"peculiarities"  of  the  Quakers  or  the  demo 
cratic  independency  of  the  Puritans.  Indeed, 
apart  from  their  common  origin  as  English 
men  and  common  home  on  the  colonial 
seaboard,  the  scattered  colonists  in  America 
possessed  little  that  was  favorable  to  unity 
of  action  or  community  of  thought. 

Nevertheless  as  the  settlements  grew  with 
the  increase  of  years  forces  were  at  work 
breaking  down  the  isolation  and  bringing 
the  colonists  nearer  together.  Though  in 
crease  of  population  and  the  filling  up  of 
the  unoccupied  areas  inevitably  brought  * 
the  boundary  questions  to  a  head,  they 
gave  opportunities  of  more  frequent  contact 
and  consequent  understanding.  Intercolonial 
migration,  which  began  on  a  large  scale 
after  the  turn  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
carried  thousands  of  colonists  from  the 
northern  and  middle  colonies  southward. 
The  Connecticut  settler  was  seemingly  a 
wanderer  by  instinct,  while  German  Palatine, 
French  Huguenot,  and  Scots-Irish  rarely 
remained  in  the  place  of  their  first  land 
ing.  The  Germans  moved  from  New  York 


S10          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

into  Pennsylvania  and  on  to  the  mountain 
valleys  of  Maryland  and  Virginia,  the  French 
from  the  coast  to  the  interior  of  Virginia  and 
South  Carolina;  while  in  that  famous  exodus 
of  the  Protestant  inhabitants  of  Ulster 
county,  Ireland,  in  which  it  is  estimated  that 
a  third  of  the  population  crossed  the  Atlantic, 
a  wandering  was  begun  which  did  not  end 
with  the  landing  on  the  colonial  coast.  The 
Scots-Irish  penetrated  to  the  frontier  towns 
of  New  England,  moved  westward  into 
New  York,  entered  Pennsylvania  by  way  of 
Chester  county  and  pushed  back  toward 
the  centre  of  the  state.  From  there  many 
went  southward,  some  remaining  with  the 
Germans  in  Maryland  and  Virginia,  others 
continuing  their  journey  ings  to  the  Wax- 
haws  in  South  Carolina.  Though  many  of 
these  wayfarers  in  search  of  homes  identi 
fied  themselves  with  the  communities  into 
which  they  came,  others,  particularly  in  the 
back-countries,  inevitably  were  weakened  in 
their  attachment  to  a  locality  and  became  in 
a  sense  the  denizens  of  a  larger  country. 
Narrow  and  restricted  though  the  life  was  of 
these  dwellers  in  the  wilderness,  it  was  freer 
in  its  independence  of  prejudice  and  the 
spirit  of  separatism  than  was  the  life  of  the 
colonists  along  the  coast. 


ATTEMPTS  AT  COLONIAL  UNION    211 

Increased  facilities  for  communication  came 
slowly.  The  early  settler  had  followed 
buffalo  tracts  and  Indian  trails  and  the 
paths  of  the  cattle  driver  and  fur  trader  who 
preceded  him.  Clearings  were  made,  ferries 
provided,  fords  discovered,  bridges  built, 
morasses  filled  in  or  covered  with  corduroy, 
and  gradually  roads  appeared.  From  such 
cities  as  Boston  and  Philadelphia  comfor-^ 
table  travel  was  possible  in  many  directions, 
and  connections  were  made  from  the  Dela 
ware  to  the  head  of  the  Chesapeake  very 
early.  Within  the  settled  area  of  the  coast 
passable  highways  were  built  more  speedily 
in  the  north  than  in  the  south,  but  it  was 
not  until  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury  that  a  continuous  journey  from  Ports 
mouth  to  Philadelphia  was  made  possible. 
With  the  back-country  connections  were 
late  in  coming.  Not  until  1735  were  the 
Berkshires  reached;  Chesapeake  bay  was 
a  water  unseen  by  the  upper  Maryland  set 
tlers  till  after  1740;  while  in  Virginia  and  the 
Carolinas  the  occupied  frontier  lay  apart  by 
itself,  and  beaten  paths  and  ways  for  teams 
and  wagons  were  not  opened  until  nearly  the 
end  of  the  colonial  era.  Nevertheless  each  trail, 
path,  road,  and  highway  was  a  factor  promot 
ing  colonial  intercourse  and  understanding. 


THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

Travel  was  largely  by  water.  Small 
vessels,  schooners,  sloops,  shallops,  and  wher 
ries  passed  up  and  down  the  navigable 
rivers,  ventured  around  Cape  Cod  and 
through  Long  Island  Sound,  furrowed  the 
waters  of  the  Delaware  and  the  Chesapeake, 
and  found  their  way  through  the  inland 
estuaries  of  the  Carolinas.  As  trade  increased 
and  the  need  of  transportation  became 
pressing,  larger  vessels  were  built,  which 
acting  in  conjunction  with  the  land  routes 
distributed  the  staple  products  of  New 
England,  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania,  and 
gave  rise  to  a  coasting  trade,  which  became 
a  very  real  factor  in  furthering  intercolonial 
migration  and  communication.  Each  river 
town  of  New  England  became  a  builder  of 
small  ships,  in  which  the  New  Englanders 
passed  from  colony  to  colony,  bartering  their 
provisions  and  fish  for  tobacco,  grain,  and 
furs.  These  small  maritime  journeys,  these 
trading  ventures  from  port  to  port,  distrib 
uting  colonial  staples  and  scattering  news  of 
events  happening  within  the  colonies  or  in 
England,  drew  the  colonies  into  a  closer 
relationship  and  broadened  the  knowledge 
which  each  had  of  the  others. 

Postal  facilities  followed  the  opening  of 
roads,  but  remained  for  many  years  irregu- 


ATTEMPTS  AT  COLONIAL  UNION    213 

lar  and  uncertain.  Mail  service  had  been 
established  by  act  of  parliament  in  1710, 
but  even  at  an  earlier  period  local  enterprise 
had  provided  a  means  for  the  despatch  of 
letters  from  colony  to  colony  as  far  south 
as  Williamsburg,  the  seat  of  government  of 
Virginia.  But  the  postage  rates  were  almost 
prohibitive  and  the  time  required  to  go  from 
Boston  to  Philadelphia  was  never  less  than  a 
week.  It  took  Governor  Pownall  seven  days 
to  go  from  Boston  to  Elizabeth.  Newspapers 
appeared  first  with  the  Boston  News  Letter 
in  1704  and  the  Boston  Gazette  in  1719,  and 
by  1768  there  were  six  Boston  newspapers, 
each  of  which  consisted  of  a  single  leaf 
printed  on  both  sides,  or  of  two  leaves  printed 
on  three  or  more  often  four  sides.  The  edK 
tions  were  small  and  the  circulation  local, 
and  the  influence  of  newspapers  upon  the 
spread  of  postal  conveniences  was  for  years 
very  slight.  Many  of  the  colonies  went  for 
weeks  and  months  without  outside  news  of 
any  kind,  cut  off  from  the  world  at  large,  ab 
sorbed  in  their  own  affairs.  Connecticut  got 
its  news  from  Boston,  North  Carolina  from 
Virginia,  and  news  from  England,  the  Conti 
nent,  and  the  West  Indies  was  more  frequently 
received  than  news  of  the  colonies  by  each 
other.  The  disorganized  condition  of  the  postal 


214  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

service  appeared  most  conspicuously  during 
the  French  and  Indian  war.  Abercrombie 
wrote  from  New  York  in  1758  that  six 
weeks  after  he  had  despatched  a  letter  to 
Montgomery  in  South  Carolina  he  had  re 
ceived  no  reply,  and  Forbes  in  western  Penn 
sylvania  could  complain  that  he  received 
news  so  late  that  it  was  "of  so  old  a  date 
there  is  no  trusting  of  it."  Littelton  of  South 
Carolina  having  received  on  August  2  a 
letter  sent  from  Philadelphia  on  May  8, 
wrote  in  exasperation  to  Pitt  that  "some 
new  regulations  in  the  post  throughout  the 
provinces"  were  "highly  necessary  for  the 
king's  service." 

Thus  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  inter 
colonial  war,  the  colonies  remained  widely 
separated,  insular  in  their  experiences  and 
prejudices,  ignorant  in  large  measure  of 
each  other  and  tenacious  of  the  powers  which 
each  had  won  in  its  struggle  with  the  royal 
prerogative.  Thomas  Banister,  a  merchant 
of  Boston,  had  declared  in  1715,  that  the 
notion  of  the  plantations  ever  setting  up  for 
themselves  was  wild  and  ungrounded.  "Dif 
ferent  schemes,  notions,  customs,  and  man 
ners, "  he  said,  "will  forever  divide  them  from 
one  another  and  unite  them  to  the  crown. 
He  that  will  be  at  the  trouble  of  reviewing 


ATTEMPTS  AT  COLONIAL  UNION    215 

only  the  religion  of  the  continent,  where  he 
will  find  [adherents]  of  every  denomination, 
from  the  earliest  Gnostick  to  the  modern 
Prophet,  and  consider  how  tenacious  each 
sect  is,  will  never  form  any  idea  of  a  com 
bination  to  the  prejudice  of  the  land  of  our 
forefathers."  And  fifty  years  later,  Franklin, 
knowing  the  variety  of  governments,  laws, 
religions,  staple  products,  habits  and  ways 
of  life,  and  degrees  of  intellectual  attain 
ment,  could  affirm  that  "  however  necessary 
a  union  of  the  colonies  had  long  been  for 
their  common  defense,  they  had  never  been 
able  to  effect  such  union  among  themselves. "^ 
Until  the  days  of  the  Stamp  Act  the  energies  \ 
of  the  colonies  were  largely  concentrated  on 
the  individual  advantages  which  each  might 
obtain  in  its  struggle  with  the  royal  authority, 
and  they  rarely  looked  beyond  their  own 
boundaries  in  thinking  of  the  future,  or  al 
lowed  the  higher  ideal  of  colonial  union  to 
encroach  upon  the  immediate  purpose  i 
hand. 

Nevertheless,  efforts  at  union  had  been 
made  in  the  seventeenth  and  early  eighteenth 
centuries.  Such  efforts  were  due  in  nearly 
every  case  to  outside  influences  and  we 
not  the  result  of  any  spontaneous  desire  for 
union  arising  in  America.  New  England, 


2I6J)       THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

with  homogeneous  population  and  common 
religious  organization  and  purpose,  was  the 
first  to  experiment  with  a  confederation  for 
mutual  protection  and  support.  Fearing  the 
outcome  of  the  war  in  England,  in  which 
should  the  royal  cause  triumph  its  own 
autonomy  might  be  endangered,  and  needing 
protection  against  the  French,  Dutch,  and 
Indians,  who  were  threatening  them  on  the 
north  and  west,  the  New  England  colonies 
banded  together  in  1643.  Maine  was  not 
included  because  of  the  distance,  and  Rhode 
Island  was  denied  admission  because  it  was 
deemed  a  factious  colony.  The  experiment 
was  not  very  successful,  and  is  chiefly  inter 
esting  as  an  attempt  at  a  loose  confederation, 
which  was  wrecked  by  the  overbearing  atti 
tude  of  Massachusetts,  and  by  the  new  situ 
ation  which  followed  the  restoration  of  the 
Stuarts  in  1660,  the  capture  of  New  Amster 
dam,  and  the  absorption  of  New  Haven  by 
Connecticut.  Frowned  on  as  a  useless  con 
trivance  and  a  needless  expense  the  confed 
eration  came  to  an  end  in  1684,  when  Massa 
chusetts  lost  its  charter,  at  the  very  time 
when  the  home  authorities  themselves  were 
planning  a  larger  scheme  of  union  to  cover  in 
part  the  same  territory. 

Early  in  its  career  the  Lords  of  Trade  had 


ATTEMPTS  AT  COLONIAL  UNION    217 

become  convinced  that  from  the  standpoint 
of  trade  and  commerce  and  military  defence 
an  increase  in  the  number  of  colonies  in 
America  was  unwise,  and  that  even  those 
which  existed  were  too  scattered  and  weak 
to  offer  a  successful  resistance  in  case  of 
attack.  The  committee  therefore  proposed 
and  eventually  carried  out  a  scheme  for  the 
.union  of  all  the  colonies  north  of  Maryland 
in  a  single  dominion  under  a  single  governor 
and  council,  in  which  there  should  be  no 
representative  assembly  of  the  people.  For 
the  execution  of  this  scheme  the  way  had 
been  prepared  by  Edward  Randolph,  the 
man  to  whom  more  than  to  anyone  else 
Massachusetts  owed  the  loss  of  her  charter, 
and  in  May,  1686,  Joseph  Dudley  became 
the  president.  But  he  was  soon  superseded 
by  Andros,  who  was  sent  out  as  governor, 
arriving  in  December.  The  territory,  at 
first,  covered  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  and 
Massachusetts,  and  the  King's  Province 
west  of  Narragansett  bay.  In  1686  Ply-! 
mouth  and  Rhode  Island  were  added,  in! 
1687  Connecticut,  in  1688  New  York  and 
New  Jersey,  and  according  to  the  original 
plan  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  Carolina,  and 
the  Bahamas  were  to  be  deprived  of  their 
charters  and  joined  to  the  enlarged  dominion. 


218          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

As  Bermuda,  Virginia,  and  the  West  Indian 
colonies  were  already  royal,  the  successful 
consummation  of  this  plan  would  have 
royalized  all  the  colonies  and  have  laid  the 
foundations  for  a  symmetrical  colonial  em 
pire  in  the  west. 

The  union  provided  for  in  the  Dominion 
of  New  England  stands  in  striking  contrast 
with  the  league  set  up  in  1643.  Instead  of 
preserving  the  independence  of  the  several 
colonies,  the  new  system  abolished  all  local 
autonomy,  reduced  the  annexed  colonies  to 
the  position  of  administrative  districts,  with 
rights  of  delegation  to  the  common  council 
at  Boston,  and  retained  under  central  con 
trol  all  judicial,  military,  and  commercial 
interests.  For  nearly  three  years  the  king 
ruled  through  his  governor  over  a  single 
royal  province  extending  from  Nova  Scotia 
to  the  Delaware.  Pennsylvania  was  exemp 
ted  by  special  Stuart  intervention,  and 
Maryland,  the  Carolinas,  and  the  Bahamas 
were  never  proceeded  against  because  of 
time  and  distance.  With  the  fall  of  James 
II  in  1689  the  dominion  broke  apart  into  its 
original  elements,  leaving  no  trace  behind, 
except  the  legend  of  the  Charter  Oak  in  Con 
necticut,  where  the  charter  of  the  colony  was 
in  popular  repute  supposed  to  have  been 


ATTEMPTS  AT  COLONIAL  UNION    219 

concealed,  and  a  bitter  hostility  in  Massachu 
setts  for  the  king  and  his  supporters,  and 
for  the  Anglican  church,  which  in  1686  had 
been  set  up  in  Boston,  with  the  town  house 
for  its  sanctuary  and  an  attendance  of  three 
or  four  hundred  members  as  a  witness  to 
its  prominence.  To  the  list  of  enemies  of 
that  colony,  which  already  included  the 
names  of  Gorges  and  Mason,  were  added 
those  of  Randolph,  Dudley,  Andros,  and 
all  the  Stuarts,  and  there  they  have  remained 
to  this  day. 

With  the  opening  of  the  war  between 
France  and  the  Grand  Alliance,  to  which 
England  became  a  party  with  the  accession 
of  William  III,  questions  of  defence  against 
the  French  in  America  became  a  matter  of 
serious  concern,  particularly  to  the  northern 
colonies.  In  1690,  at  the  suggestion  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  an  intercolonial  congress  was 
held  in  New  York,  to  which  delegates  came 
from  Massachusetts,  Plymouth,  Connecticut, 
and  New  York,  and  letters  were  sent  from 
Rhode  Island,  Maryland,  and  Virginia  prom 
ising  aid  and  support  in  any  expedition  that 
the  congress  might  undertake.  An  attack 
upon  Montreal  was  planned,  and  the  com 
bined  forces  actually  reached  Lake  Cham- 
plain.  But  there  they  halted,  discussions 


220  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

arose,  sickness  hindered  the  enterprise,  and 
in  the  end  practically  nothing  was  accom 
plished.  Cooperative  colonial  action  seemed 
unobtainable,  and  so  lukewarm  did  the 
colonists  appear  that  Governor  Fletcher  of 
New  York,  who  had  also  been  commis 
sioned  governor  of  Pennsylvania  and  New 
Jersey  and  military  head  of  Connecticut,  and 
had  tried  in  vain  to  arrange  another  meeting 
in  1693,  could  report  that  the  "small  colonies 
on  this  main"  were  "as  much  divided  in 
their  interests  and  affection  as  Christian 
and  Turk." 

The  need  of  action  became  so  imperative 
that  complaint  after  complaint  was  sent  to 
England  from  men  in  America  in  many  walks 
of  life.  In  1696  William  Penn  drafted  a 
"brief  and  plain  scheme"  for  a  yearly  con 
gress,  to  be  composed  of  twenty  deputies 
from  ten  colonies,  to  meet  in  New  York 
under  the  presidency  of  the  royal  governor 
there,  and  "to  debate  and  resolve  of  such 
measures  as  are  most  advisable  for  their 
better  understanding  and  the  public  tran 
quillity  and  safety."  Others,  notably  traders 
and  merchants,  threatened  with  the  loss  of 
their  fishing  and  their  commerce  in  furs, 
masts,  timber,  and  peltry,  begged  for  the 
establishment  of  a  common  government 


ATTEMPTS  AT  COLONIAL  UNION 

under  a  single  head,  which,  while  preserving 
the  "civil  rights,  properties,  and  customs" 
of  the  colonists,  would  protect  the  English 
settlements  and  allay  the  apprehensions  and 
discouragements  due  to  the  French  peril. 
A  body  of  New  England  traders  urged  that 
a  governor  be  sent  over  with  1000  men,  arms 
and  ammunition,  cannon  and  other  ordnance, 
four  frigates,  and  a  fire-ship.  Recommenda 
tions  for  bringing  the  colonies  under  a  single 
military  head  had  been  made  by  Roman 
Catholic  priests  in  Maryland  in  1689,  the 
same  idea  was  repeated  by  Governor  Nichol 
son  of  Virginia  in  1692,  and  the  merchants  in 
particular  urged  a  union  under  one  governor 
with  free  trade  between  the  provinces. 
Livingston  in  1701  and  Coxe  in  1722  empha 
sized  the  plan  and  the  Board  of  Trade  was 
in  entire  sympathy  with  the  idea  and  advo 
cated  it  strenuously. 

The  board  failing  to  win  the  support  of 
parliament  during  the  years  from  1701  to 
1715  renewed  its  efforts  in  1722  and  recom 
mended  that  the  proprietary  and  charter 
governments  should  be  resumed  by  the 
crown  "either  by  purchase,  agreement,  or 
otherwise,"  and  a  single  government  be 
established  whereby  alone  the  respect  of  the 
Indians  could  be  maintained,  trade  promoted, 


222  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

quit-rents  gathered,  and  the  woods  protected. 
Each  colony  was  to  retain  its  governor  and 
assembly,  but  over  all  was  to  be  placed  a 
governor  general  with  a  fixed  salary  paid  by 
the  crown  and  a  council  composed  of  dele 
gates  from  each  colony.  Had  a  competent 
person  been  found,  who  would  have  accepted 
the  post,  it  is  probable  that  the  experiment 
would  have  been  tried,  but  the  Earl  of  Stair, 
to  whom  the  position  was  offered,  refused  it 
and  the  board  did  not  pursue  the  matter 
further,  though  it  never  fully  abandoned 
the  scheme.  It  substituted  methods  of  per 
suasion  and  processes  of  law,  and  having 
succeeded  with  Carolina  and  the  Bahamas, 
attempted  to  win  over  Connecticut  and 
Rhode  Island.  But  these  colonies  refused 
to  surrender  their  charters,  Connecticut, 
in  a  letter  very  shrewdly  written,  reminding 
the  Whig  government  that  "the  vacating 
and  taking  away  of  charters  of  incorporation, 
without  just  cause  of  forfeiture"  was  char 
acteristic  of  reigns  like  that  of  the  late  King 
James,  "when  all  corporations  and  charters 
were  crush't  and  trampled  under  and  the 
king's  subjects  made  vassals  and  slaves  in 
defiance  of  Magna  Charta  and  the  liberties 
of  a  British  subject."  Such  a  remark,  like 
other  similar  hints  in  letters  from  the61* 


ATTEMPTS  AT  COLONIAL  UNION    223 

colonies,  was  to  the  Whigs  "a  tender  plot 
and  likely  to  be  thought  of  at  home." 

Other  suggestions  were  advanced  at  this 
period,  either  privately  or  in  pamphlets,  by 
various  persons  in  England  and  America, 
for  the  subject  was  very  much  in  the  thoughts 
of  men  at  this  time.  Dinwiddie  of  Virginia 
advocated  two  confederacies.  Rev.  Richard 
Peters  of  Pennsylvania  outlined  a  fourfold 
division  with  an  annual  committee  of  union 
for  each,  a  system  of  interdivisional  corre 
spondence,  and  a  single  "union"  regiment  of 
thirteen  companies  commanded  by  officers 
appointed  by  the  king  and  paid  from  inter 
nal  duties  levied  "on  such  things  as  are  in 
most  general  use."  This  project,  like  those 
of  Hutchinson  of  Massachusetts  and  Weare 
of  New  Hampshire,  both  of  whom,  with 
Peters,  were  members  of  the  later  Albany 
conference  of  1754,  remained  unpublished 
and  only  serve  to  show  what  was  passing  in 
men's  minds.  Occasional  conferences  were 
held,  between  1740  and  1750,  at  New  York 
or  Albany,  but  they  were  scantily  attended 
and  had  no  wider  purpose  than  to  arrange 
satisfactory  relations  with  the  Indians. 

The  approach  of  war  with  France  after 
1750  brought  the  whole  matter  of  colonial 
defence  prominently  to  the  front.  The  royal 


224          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

governors  and  the  Board  of  Trade  looked 
on  the  future  with  deep  misgivings.  The 
French  troops  in  America,  commanded  by  a 
single  head,  were  able  to  act  promptly  and 
with  effect,  while  the  English  colonies  seemed 
"sunk  into  a  profound  lethargy  and,  resigned 
to  stupidity  and  slumbering,  appeared  insen- 
.  sible  to  the  threatening  danger."  The  con 
flicts  which  the  assemblies  were  carrying  on 
with  the  governors  for  the  control  of  the 
government  served  to  blind  them  to  the 
menace  of  French  attack,  and  they  used 
every  attempt  at  military  defence  as  an 
opportunity  to  gain  some  new  advantage  at 
the  expense  of  the  crown.  No  troops  could 

ibe  raised  or  money  appropriated  except  after 
prolonged  debate  and  acrimonious  discus 
sion,  and  obstructions  often  trivial  were 
thrown  in  the  way  of  every  scheme  for  co 
operation.  The  New  England  colonies  were 
angered  at  the  "total  inactivity  and  supine- 
ness"  of  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and 
North  Carolina,  while  all  watched  each  other 
f  with  a  jealous  eye,  fearing  lest  by  chance 
1  one  should  do  more  than  its  legitimate  share. 
"I  have  learnt,"  wrote  Governor  Sharpe  of 
Maryland,  "not  to  entertain  very  sanguine 
hopes  of  the  resolutions  of  American  assem 
blies.  As  often  as  they  have  been  convened, 


ATTEMPTS  AT  COLONIAL  UNION    225 

urged,  and  intreated  to  aid  each  other  in 
defending  His  Majesty's  territories  and 
their  own  properties,  so  often  almost  have 
they  as  it  were  unanimously  refused  to 
provide  against  the  dangers  that  threaten 
them." 

Similar  complaints  from  other  governors 
had  an  important  influence  upon  the  authori 
ties  at  home,  who  at  this  crisis  made  a 
new  effort  to  provide  for  concerted  action. 
In  August,  1753,  Secretary  Holdernesse 
warned  the  governors  of  the  approaching 
conflict,  and  in  September  the  Board  of 
Trade  instructed  them  to  call  a  conference 
at  Albany  for  the  purpose  of  renewing  and. 
strengthening  the  "ancient  covenant  chain" 
with  the  Six  Nations.  In  a  later  letter  to 
Lieutenant  Governor  DeLancey  of  New 
York,  who  was  to  be  the  presiding  officer, 
the  board,  believing  that  the  colonies  were 
already  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  a 
"general  union  of  strength  and  interest," 
urged  that  the  opportunity  be  improved  for 
the  drafting  of  a  plan  of  union,  which  could 
never  be  effected  "in  the  seperate  and  divided 
state  of  the  colony's  without  some  general 
congress."  At  the  same  time,  acting  under 
instructions  from  the  secretary  of  state,  the 
board  set  about  drafting  a  plan  of  its  own. 


226          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

On  June  19,  1754,  there  met  in  the  court 
house  at  Albany  twenty-four  delegates,  from 
all  the  colonies  except  New  Jersey,  Virginia, 
the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia.  Virginia  and 
the  Carolinas  wished  to  be  considered  present, 
though  circumstances  prevented  them  from 
sending  representatives.  Indian  questions 
having  first  been  taken  up  and  partly  settled, 
a  motion  was  made  on  June  24  that  the  com 
missioners  deliver  their  opinion  whether  a 
union  of  all  the  colonies  was  not  absolutely 
necessary  for  their  security  and  defence. 
This  motion  was  passed  unanimously,  and 
a  committee  was  appointed  to  prepare  and 
receive  plans  and  digest  them  into  one  general 
plan  for  the  inspection  of  the  conference. 
This  plan  as  finally  perfected  provided  for 
a  president  general  appointed  by  the  crown 
and  a  council  chosen  by  the  assemblies  to 
meet  yearly  at  Philadelphia,  with  power 
over  Indian  affairs,  new  settlements,  mili 
tary  and  naval  affairs,  the  making  of  laws 
and  levying  of  taxes  for  these  purposes,  the 
former  of  which  were  to  be  transmitted  to 
England  for  the  royal  approval.  Thus  the 
scheme  combined  the  rights  of  the  colonies 
with  a  federal  control  over  certain  forms  of 
taxation  and  an  ultimate  royal  approval  of  the 
laws  adopted  by  the  new  council.  Adopted 


ATTEMPTS  AT  COLONIAL  UNION    227 

by  the  conference  on  July  10  the  plan  was 
presented  to  the  individual  colonies,  as  none 
of  the  delegates  except  those  of  Massachusetts 
had  been  given  adequate  powers.  By  them 
it  was  unanimously  rejected,  Connecticut 
deeming  it  "a  very  extraordinary  thing  and 
against  the  rights  and  privileges  of  English 
men."  Governor  Shirley  afterward  wrote 
that  the  commissioners  had  no  hope  that  the 
recommendation  would  have  any  effect,  nor 
did  he  believe  that  any  proper  plan  could  be 
formed  in  which  the  governments  would 
unite,  because  "their  different  constitutions, 
situations,  circumstances,  and  tempers'^ 
would  prove  "  an  invincible  obstacle  to  their 
agreement  upon  any  one  plan  in  every 
article,  or  if  they  should  ever  happen  to 
agree  upon  one,  to  their  duly  carrying  it 
into  execution." 

Rejection    by    the    colonies    decided    the 
fate  of  the  Albany  scheme.     It  was  never    * 
submitted  officially  either  to  the  Board  of 
Trade   or   to   parliament.      That   it   would 
have  been  rejected  also  in  England,  had  it      / 
met  with  favor  in  America,  is  probable,  as  / 
it  provided  for  a  political  union  instead  of 
the    military    union    which    the    Board    of 
Trade  desired  and  which  became  the  basis 
of  the  plan  which  the  board  itself  drafted 


228          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

and  submitted  to  the  king  on  August  9.  The 
f  board  was  seemingly  afraid  of  a  strong  and 
efficient  political  union  in  America.  It  may 
have  thought  that  the  colonies  would  thereby 
get  beyond  the  control  of  the  home  author 
ities.  If  individual  colonies  had  already 
shown  themselves  impatient  of  dependence 
on  the  British  crown,  what  might  not  all 
the  colonies  accomplish,  should  they  act 
together? 


CHAPTER  X 

EVENTS   LEADING   TO   THE  STAMP  ACT 
CONGRESS 

UNION,  for  either  political  or  military 
purposes,  had  proved  impossible  of  attain 
ment  in  the  year  1754,  when  the  separatist 
tendencies  were  too  strong  to  be  overcome 
by  any  common  interest  which  had  mani 
fested  itself  up  to  that  time.  Common  action 
in  cooperation  with  England  was  too  slender 
a  motive,  even  when  it  involved  the  security 
of  their  lives  and  property,  to  draw  the' 
colonists  from  their  individual  struggles 
against  England  in  behalf  of  their  so-called 
rights  as  Englishmen.  Only  when  under 
changed  conditions  England  herself  became 
the  common  object  of  the  resentment  of  the 
colonists,  was  a  passion  aroused  sufficiently 
powerful  to  master  the  suspicions  and  jeal 
ousies  that  had  hitherto  held  sway.  From 
the  Albany  conference  to  the  congress  held 
at  New  York  to  protest  against  the  Stamp 
Act,  we  pass  through  a  series  of  events  of 
first  importance  in  American  history,  in  that 
they  mark  the  turning  of  the  current  of 
colonial  sentiment  and  its  flowing,  very 

229 


230  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

slightly  at  first,  in  the  opposite  direction. 
When  this  result  has  been  accomplished  we 
have  reached  the  end  of  the  colonial  era 
properly  so-called. 

During  the  war  between  England  and 
France  in  America,  commonly  known  as  the 
French  and  Indian  war,  each  colony  mani 
fested  with  unmistakable  clearness  its 
strength  and  weakness  and  the  motive  that 
influenced  its  policy.  New  England  dis 
played  public  spirit,  voted  money  and  men 
liberally,  and  cooperated  zealously  in  mili 
tary  undertakings.  Massachusetts,  under 
such  tactful  men  as  Shirley  and  Pownall,  was 
proud  of  its  position  as  leader.  Connect 
icut  and  Rhode  Island  acted  with  readiness 
and  were  loyal  to  the  cause.  New  Hamp 
shire,  pleading  poverty,  was  chary  of  expen 
diture  and  seemed  without  interest  in  the 
war.  The  assembly  of  New  York,  while 
appropriating  money,  quarrelled  with  the 
governor  over  its  use.  But  when  once  the 
assembly  had  made  good  its  claims,  it  acted 
more  willingly  and  with  a  better  spirit. 
New  Jersey  proved  eager  and  willing,  was 
less  jealous  of  its  neighbors,  and  showed,  as 
Governor  Morris  wrote  "a  due  regard  both 
for  the  rights  of  government  and  the  liberties 
of  the  people."  Pennsylvania,  on  the  other 


THE  STAMP  ACT  CONGRESS      231 

hand,  spent  the  seven  years  in  quarrelling 
with  governor  and  proprietary,  and  the 
members  of  the  assembly  preferred  to  see 
their  province  invaded  by  the  enemy  rather  ^ 
than  to  carry  out  the  royal  and  proprietary 
instructions.  By  their  insistence  on  the 
retention  of  all  authority,  and  their  stubborn 
ness  in  prolonging  debate  and  throwing  re 
sponsibility  for  failure  on  the  shoulders  of 
the  governor,  they  impeded  military  opera 
tions  till  even  the  kindly  Forbes,  conducting 
the  campaign  on  the  western  frontier,  could 
write  in  exasperation  that  their  tardy  pro 
ceedings  would  greatly  distress  the  active 
operations  which  he  had  planned.  Maryland 
as  well  preferred  to  leave  the  colony  defence 
less  rather  than  yield  on  points  in  dispute, 
and  during  the  last  five  years  contributed 
very  little  to  the  cause.  The  trouble  in  both 
Pennsylvania  and  Maryland  was  in  no  small 
part  due  to  proprietary  interference  and 
demands,  but  the  result  was  incompetent^ 
soldiers,  inadequate  militia  laws,  and  ex 
treme  parsimony  in  the  furnishing  of  funds. 

The  southern  colonies  cooperated  only  to 
a  very  small  extent.     In  Virginia  at  first  they 
talk  was   all  of  the  rights  of  Englishmen, 
and  the  assembly  so  guarded  the  people  that 
only  vagrants  could  be  enlisted  for  service 


232  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

outside  the  colony.  There  seemed  little  loy 
alty  to  the  military  cause,  the  best  colonists 
would  not  enlist,  desertions  were  frequent, 
and  it  was  not  until  the  later  years  that  any 
sympathy  or  liberality  was  displayed.  As 
if  ashamed  of  her  record,  Virginia  finally 
awoke  to  her  obligations  and  toward  the 
end  voted  money  freely,  compensating  in 
large  measure  for  the  earlier  neglect.  In 
North  Carolina  there  was  the  same  legis 
lative  obstruction,  due  to  factional  disputes 
and  conflicts  with  the  governor,  often  over 
most  trivial  matters.  Conditions  were  at 
best  unfavorable,  drafting  was  disliked,  and 
the  laws,  better  in  the  plan  than  in  the  exe 
cution,  were  not  carried  out.  South  Carolina, 
the  assembly  of  which  was  practically  su 
preme,  showed  a  fine  record  at  the  opening 
of  the  war  but  later  confined  itself  to  the  task 
of  defending  its  own  frontier.  Georgia  gave 
little  military  assistance.  The  poverty  of  the 
colony  was  such  that  all  expenses  of  govern 
ment  had  to  be  met  by  the  crown,  and,  as  the 
assembly  said,  their  abilities  were  not  equal 
to  their  inclinations. 

Thus  the  events  of  the  French  and  Indian 
war  did  little  to  advance  the  cause  of  union. 
Despite  the  cooperation  of  many  colonies 
in  a  common  military  undertaking,  which,  it 


THE  STAMP  ACT  CONGRESS      233 

may  be,  smoothed  the  way  to  an  eventual 
understanding,  the  dislike  and  even  the 
enmity  of  colony  for  colony  were  as  great  i 
1763  as  in  1750,  while  the  absorption  of  each 
in  its  own  affairs  was  as  profound  as  at  any 
time  in  its  history.  Few  periods  of  the  eight-\ 
eenth  century  are  more  important  for  the 
study  of  constitutional  progress  in  the  indi 
vidual  colonies  than  is  that  from  1756  to 
1763,  when  questions  of  money,  militia, 
militia  laws,  drafts,  quotas,  length  of  service, 
and  the  standing  of  provincial  officers  and 
levies  was  fought  out  in  nearly  every  as 
sembly.  Many  of  these  questions  involved 
relations  with  the  crown  and  the  command 
ing  officers  in  America,  but  others  concerned 
neighboring  colonies  and  the  mutual  welfare. 
All  indicated  the  presence  everywhere  of  an 
excessive  individualism  that  rendered  the 
creation  of  a  political  union,  based  upon  the 
principle  of  a  common  nationality,  seem 
ingly  a  remote  possibility. 

Furthermore  the  common  struggle  against 
France  did  nothing  to  strengthen  the  feeling 
of  loyalty  for  Great  Britain.  The  friction 
which  resulted  from  the  exasperating  system, 
whereby  each  colony  furnished  its  own  quotas 
of  men  and  money,  was  not  overcome  by  the 
large  grants,  made  by  parliament  from  1756 


234          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

to  1763  and  amounting  to  more  than  a  mil 
lion  pounds,  to  recompense  the  colonies  for 
their  outlay.  The  common  endurance  of 
hardships,  which  might  have  served,  under 
other  circumstances,  to  allay  the  mutual 
suspicions  of  regular  and  provincial  soldiers, 
only  widened  the  breach  between  them, 
because  of  the  contempt  which  each  felt  for 
the  other.  The  British  commanders  deemed 
the  colonial  militia  capricious  and  unsteady 
and  called  them  canaille  and  cowards,  while 
the  colonials  .criticised  with  equal  severity 
the  British  methods  of  war,  and  said  that  the 
failures  of  the  earlier  years  were  entirely  due 
to  British  blunders.  Troubles  arose  over  the 
rank  of  colonial  officers,  which  ended  in  dis 
satisfaction  and  discontent,  and  interminable 
difficulties  were  encountered  in  determining 
periods  of  service,  the  quartering  of  troops, 
and  the  obtaining  of  forage  and  supplies.  Of 
\,  all  the  colonies,  South  Carolina  alone  adopted 
the  British  rules  and  discipline  of  war. 

One  aspect  of  the  period  might  well  have 
jiven  the  British  statesmen  food  for  thought, 
had  their  minds  been  open  to  new  ideas 
regarding  a  colonial  policy.  The  royal  col 
onies,  where  England  expected  to  find  loyalty 
and  support,  were  as  a  rule  the  most  difficult 
for  the  commanders  in  America  to  deal  with, 


THE  STAMP  ACT  CONGRESS      235 

while  the  New  England  colonies,  which  were 
historically  and  economically  most  antago 
nistic  to  the  British  system  of  control,  were 
generally  willing  to  bear  their  legitimate 
burden  without  demur.  The  royal  and  pro 
prietary  colonies  were  very  slow  to  cooperate 
for  the  common  defense  or  for  the  defense  of 
their  neighbors,  and  lent  their  resources, 
often  very  unwillingly,  to  the  promotion  of 
the  common  good.  They  expected  England 
to  carry  out  her  part  of  the  mutual  obligation 
of  protecting  them  against  their  enemies, 
but  were  wholly  averse  to  fulfilling  their  part 
of  the  contract  by  offering  obedience 
return.  England  might  have  learned  the 
lesson  that  this  fact  taught  and  have  realized 
that  the  best  and  most  tractable  of  the  colo 
nies  were  those  which  possessed  the  greatestj 
amount  of  self-government  and  were  mosl 
at  peace  within  themselves.  But  the  Britisl 
view  of  colonial  dependence  admitted  of  n< 
modification,  and  the  idea  of  a  colony, 
autonomous  and  commercially  independent 
and  at  the  same  time  loyal  and  cooperative 
and  a  strength  to  the  mother  country,  never 
seriously  entered  a  British  mind.  At  no 
time  was  the  full  letter  of  the  British  policy 
more  vigorously  insisted  upon  than  during 
the  twenty  years  from  1763  to  1783. 


236  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

Two  incidents  took  place  during  the 
last  years  of  the  war  that  brought  prom 
inently  to  the  front  the  sentiment  which  pre 
vailed  in  certain  quarters  toward  the  British 
government.  The  persistent  trade  which  the 
colonists  were  carrying  on  with  the  enemy 
aroused  the  British  authorities  to  attempt 
its  suppression.  They  determined  to  enforce 
the  laws  of  trade,  particularly  the  Molasses 
Act  of  1733,  and  in  so  doing  called  on  the 
navy  to  cooperate,  at  the  same  time  instruct 
ing  the  customs  officers  to  employ  "writs  of 
'  assistance,"  enabling  them  to  search  anywhere 
they  thought  best  for  the  purpose  of  finding 
concealed  goods,  chiefly  the  illegally  imported 
products  of  the  French  and  Dutch  West 
Indies.  The  colonists  declared  these  writs 
illegal,  and  in  a  famous  trial  before  the 
superior  court  of  Boston,  James  Otis  de 
claimed  against  the  acts  of  trade  as  oppres 
sive  and  contrary  to  natural  equity.  Two 
years  later,  the  young  Patrick  Henry,  defend 
ing  the  law  of  Virginia  in  the  "two  penny" 
case,  brought  by  the  clergy  to  recover  their 
losses  of  salary,  due  to  payment  in  depre 
ciated  currency  rather  than  in  tobacco  as 
had  previously  been  the  rule,  declared  in  a 
perfervid  oratorical  effort,  plainly  designed 
to  sway  public  opinion  and  to  increase  his 


THE  STAMP  ACT  CONGRESS      237 

own  popularity,  that  the  King  of  England 
in  disallowing  the  act  had  degenerated  into  a 
tyrant.  But  these  speeches  were  premature. 
The  time  had  not  come  when  utterances  of 
this  kind  could  sway  public  sentiment. 
Significant  as  they  were  in  anticipating  the 
future,  they  fell  on  a  time  when  the  colonists 
were  well  aware  of  the  need  of  continued 
British  protection,  and  understood  that  sepa 
ration  from  Great  Britain  would  mean, 
attack  and  possible  annexation  by  either 
France  or  Spain.  The  colonies  were  not 
prepared  to  face  the  issue  of  providing  for 
the  naval  and  military  defense  of  their  coast 
and  frontier.  En^aiid_was_siill  necessary  to 
their  existence. 

>ut  the  peace  of  Paris,  signed  on  February 
10j  17^63,  marked,  a  great  turning  point  in  the 
position ^rThe^oloiiles^and  of  tKeir  relations  <i 
with  the  mother  country.  The  French  were  j 
removed  from  America  on  the  north  and  west 
and  the  Spanish  from  the  Floridas  on  the 
south.  With  the  single  exception  of  the  city 
of  New  Orleans,  the  frontier  lay  open  to  the 
Mississippi  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Danger 
from  outside  attack  was  averted  and  expan 
sion  toward  the  west  and  south  was  unob 
structed  by  any  foreign  power.  No  less  im 
portant  was  the  effect  of  the  peace  upon  the 


238  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

imperial  ambitions  of  Great  Britain.  In 
retaining  Canada  and  returning  Guadeloupe 
and  St.  Lucia  to  France,  she  completely 
reversed  her  opinion  regarding  the  economic 
superiority  of  the  West  Indies,  and  hence 
forth  took  the  ground  that  a  great  area  of 
territory  capable  of  receiving  a  growing  popu 
lation  was  more  valuable  as  a  market  for 
her  manufactures  than  was  a  group  of  is 
lands,  the  importance  of  which  lay  in  their 
supply  of  tropical  products.  To  protect  and 
preserve  the  new  continental  territories  be 
came  from  this  time  the  dominant  purpose 
of  the  British  ministry,  and  inevitably  de 
manded  the  recasting  of  the  imperial  policy 
to  meet  the  new  situation. 

But  in  satisfying  the  demands  of  the  new 
imperialism  no  change  was  made  in  the  funda 
mental  principles  of  the  commercial  policy. 
The  object  was  the  readjustment  of  the  old, 
not  the  adoption  of  a  new  attitude  toward  the 
colonies.  The  latter  must  still  remain  in 
dependence  on  the  mother  country  and  obe 
dient  to  her  authority.  No  recognition  could 
be  given  to  the  independence  already  won; 
on  the  contrary  every  effort  must  be  made  to 
restore  the  full  strength  of  the  royal  prerog 
ative.  More  important  still,  the  trade  laws 
must  be  enforced,  and  if  necessary  supple- 


THE  STAMP  ACT  CONGRESS      239 

men  ted  by  additional  legislation;  and  so 
heavy  had  become  the  debt  to  the  British 
tax  payer,  and  so  untrustworthy  the  system 
of  quotas  and  requisitions  employed  in  the 
colonies  during  the  recent  war,  that  new 
measures  must  be  taken  by  the  British 
government  itself  to  meet  the  expenses  for 
protection  in  the  future.  Furthermore,  the 
newly  acquired  western  territory  must  be 
dealt  with  in  the  interest,  not  only  of  new 
settlers,  but  of  the  Indians  also,  who  occupied 
it,  and  Canada  with  its  French  Roman  Catho 
lic  population  must  be  handled  with  such  dis 
cretion  as  to  transform  it  into  loyal  British 
territory.  The  problems  that  the  statesmen 
of  England  were  called  upon  to  solve  at  this 
juncture  were  such  as  to  demand  high 
qualities  of  statesmanship.  Unfortunately 
the  leaders  who  faced  these  problems  were, 
with  one  or  two  exceptions,  men  of  little 
vision,  loyal  to  the  traditions  of  the  past, 
and,  as  far  as  they  were  able  to  rise  above 
the  allurements  of  party  intrigue  and  the 
thirst  for  office,  were  blinded  by  the  glamour 
of  a  self-sufficing  empire. 

On  October  7,  1763,  the  king  issued  a 
proclamation,  providing  for  the  government 
of  Canada,  the  Floridas,  and  Grenada,  and 
setting  aside  the  western  territory  as  a 


240  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

temporary  reservation  for  the  Indians.  In  so 
doing  there  appears  to  have  been  no  delib 
erate  intention  of  forbidding  colonial  settle 
ment  west  of  the  Alleghanies,  but  an  Indian 
war,  led  by  Pontiac,  a  chief  of  the  Ottawas, 
and  due  to  the  encroachment  and  unscrupu 
lous  conduct  of  colonial  traders,  demanded 
the  adoption  of  an  imperial  policy  of  Indian 
protection.  The  control  of  Indian  affairs 
must  be  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the  colo 
nies,  Indian  rights  must  be  respected,  and 
Indian  lands  and  trade  must  be  placed  under 
the  direct  supervision  of  Great  Britain.  An 
elaborate  scheme  of  Indian  control  was  con 
sidered  and  in  part  carried  out,  but  in  the 
end  it  proved  too  expensive  for  the  govern 
ment  to  inaugurate  in  the  existing  state  of 
its  finances,  and  all  attempts  to  obtain 
parliamentary  support  for  the  scheme  ended 
in  failure.  The  management  of  Indian  trade 
after  1768  fell  back  into  the  hands  of  the 
colonies,  the  Illinois  country  became  a 
land  of  disorder,  frequented  by  fur  traders 
and  colonists  with  land  and  colonization 
schemes  to  promote,  and  was  lost  to  sight  in 
the  greater  issues  raised  by  the  discontented 
and  rebellious  colonists  in  the  east. 

To  meet  the  new  situation  the  aid  of  par 
liament    had    now    become    necessary    and 


THE  STAMP  ACT  CONGRESS      241 

inevitable.    The  idea  of  calling  on  the  legis 
lative  body  of  the  kingdom  to  aid  the  roy; 
prerogative  in  America  was  not  new.    It  had 
been  urged  by  Privy  Council,  secretary  of 
state,  Board  of  Trade,  colonial  governors  and 
even    agents,    and   by    British    commanders 
and  officers  in  the  late  war.    As  early  as  1706, 
Secretary  Hedges  had  declared  that  if  "the 
provinces  do  not  comply  in  what  they  at 
present   refuse,    they   cannot   expect   but   a 
remedy   will   be   applied   by   parliament   in 
reasonable   matters."     In    1729,   Newcastle 
had   threatened   the   obstinate   assembly   of 
Massachusetts  with  parliamentary  interven 
tion,   and   in    1735   the   Privy   Council   had 
attempted  in  similar  manner  to  bring  the 
Jamaica  assembly  to  terms.     The  right  of 
parliament  to  step  in  where  the  royal  pre-  \ 
rogative  was  proving  insufficient  was  per-    \ 
fectly  understood  in  America,  and  no  denial 
of  its  competency  was  made  in  the  period    / 
before  1763.     Naturally,  the  colonists  were  / 
anxious    to    avoid    such    a   contingency,    as 
when    Connecticut    feared    that   parliament 
might  inquire  too  closely  into  the  working 
of  her  charter  and   the  Jamaica   assembly 
begged  of  the  home  government  that  parlia 
ment  might  not  be  brought  into  the  contro 
versy;    but   they   did   not   declare   against 


242          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

parliamentary  authority,  concerning  acts 
of  trade,  regulative  measures,  or  revenue 
bills,  until  after  the  issues  of  1764  and  1765 
had  been  raised. 

When,  therefore,  in  1763  George  Gren- 
ville  became  head  of  the  ministry  and  faced 
the  critical  position  confronting  him,  he 
turned  to  parliament  for  the  necessary  legis 
lation.  He  made  careful  inquiries  into  the 
operation  of  the  acts  of  trade  and  obtained 
elaborate  reports  from  the  Treasury,  the 
commissioners  of  customs,  and  the  colonial 
governors,  and  upon  the  information  thus 
received  framed  the  bill  which  parliament 
passed  in  1764,  commonly  known  as  the 
Sugar  Act,  but  which  in  its  entirety  embraced 
at  least  three  distinct  propositions.  First, 
to  prevent  illegal  trading  by  enlarging  the 
powers  of  the  admiralty  courts,  increasing 
the  efficiency  of  the  customs  service  in  Amer 
ica,  and  employing  the  ships  and  officers 
of  the  navy  to  aid  in  enforcing  the  laws. 
Secondly,  to  encourage  the  colonies  by  re 
pealing  duties  and  granting  bounties  so  as 
to  enlarge  and  relieve  colonial  trade.  Thirdly, 
to  raise  a  revenue  in  America  by  reviving 
and  reenforcing  with  some  modifications 
the  Molasses  Act  of  1733.  In  this  important 
measure  the  British  government  declared 


THE  STAMP  ACT  CONGRESS      243 

for  the  first  time  its  purpose  of  obtaining  a 
revenue  from  the  colonies,  but  it  accompanied 
that  declaration  with  the  quieting  statement 
that  the  money  thus  raised  should  be  ex 
pended  for  the  protection  of  the  colonies 
themselves.  Such  protection  was  to  involve 
the  maintenance  of  a  standing  army  of  ten 
thousand  men,  a  proposal  sure  to  arouse 
anger  and  apprehension  in  America. 

The  colonists  saw  in  this  measure  a  menace 
to  the  independence  which  they  had  already 
won,  and  although  the  measure  was  never 
designed  as  a  check  upon  colonial  self-govern 
ment,  as  British  statesmen  construed  that 
term,  it  was  viewed  in  America  as  an  oppres 
sive  and  "unconstitutional"  interference  with 
their  rights,  rights  it  may  be  noticed  which 
had__bee_n  illegally  usurped  and  never  ac 
knowledged  by  the  autEorities  in  England. 
Sympathetic  though  we  may  be  to  the  growth 
of  constitutional  democracy  and  independ 
ence  in  America,  we  must  nevertheless^, 
recognize  the  fact  that  English  statesmen 
denied  the  legality  of  the  very  powers  which 
the  colonists  declared  were  now  interfered 
with,  and  asserted  to  the  end  that  no  colonial 
assembly  possessed  rights  and  privileges 
analogous  and  coequal  to  those  of  the  House 
of  Commons  in  Great  Britain.  The  term 


244          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

"unconstitutional,"  so  often  on  the  lips  of 
colonial  orators,  had  no  meaning  to  an 
English  statesman  or  departmental  official, 
and  was  only  significant  to  the  men  in  Amer- 

(  ica,  who  for  half  a  century  had  been  acquiring 
a  "constitution"  by  robbing  the  crown  of 

t  its  prerogatives.  Yet  in  this  method  of  pro 
cedure  America  did  not  stand  alone.  England 
herself  had  built  up  her  existing  constitutional 
organization  in  precisely  the  same  way,  but 
the  parallel  passed  unnoticed  so  far  as  the 
British  authorities  were  concerned. 

It  soon  became  evident  that  the  act  of 
1764  would  raise  a  very  inadequate  revenue 
for  the  purpose  in  hand.  According  to  the 
most  liberal  estimate  the  amount  would  not 
exceed  one-seventh  of  the  sum  required  to 
maintain  an  army  in  America,  quite  apart 
from  the  cost  of  the  Indian  establishment 
which  the  Board  of  Trade  desired  to  create. 
Grenville  was  fully  aware  of  the  situation 
and  had  already  in  hand  the  further  sugges 
tion  of  a  colonial  stamp  tax.  This  suggestion 
did  not  originate  with  him.  It  had  already 
been  made  half  a  dozen  times  before,  and  in 
1763  Henry  McCulloh,  who  had  held  many 
posts  in  the  colonies,  notably  in  South  Caro 
lina,  and  was  familiar  with  aspects  of  the 
financial  situation  in  America,  drafted  a 


THE  STAMP  ACT  CONGRESS      245 

complete  statement  of  such  a  scheme  and 
presented  it  to  Grenville.  There  is  reason 
to  believe  that  the  latter  took  it  more  or 
less  ready  made  from  McCulloh's  hand.  In 
February,  1765,  he  introduced  the  measure 
into  the  House  of  Commons,  where,  after 
considerable  debate,  it  was  passed  by  a 
vote  of  205  to  49.  In  the  Lords  it  was  passed 
without  a  division.  By  this  act  stamps 
were  to  be  affixed  to  all  legal  and  commer 
cial  documents  in  the  colonies,  to  pamphlets, 
almanacs,  newspapers,  college  diplomas, 
grants  of  office,  licenses,  bonds,  grants  of 
land,  playing  cards,  and  dice.  The  revenue 
thus  gained  was  to  be  used  only  for  the 
defence  of  the  colonies  and,  added  to  that 
which  would  accrue  from  the  act  of  1764, 
was  estimated  at  something  less  than  half 
the  cost  of  the  army  in  America,  the  remain 
der  to  be  secured  by  requisition  among  the 
colonies  themselves. 

The  measures  of  1764  and  1765  were  the 
most  conspicuous  of  many  efforts  made 
during  these  years  to  increase  British  control 
in  America  and  to  limit  the  independen< 
which  the  colonists  had  won  for  themselves. 
Since  1752  Board  of  Trade,  Privy  Council, 
secretary  of  state,  and  the  Treasury  had 
all  been  endeavoring  to  check  the  aggressive 


246          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

advance  of  the  colonial  assemblies,  and  to 
recover  control  of  trade  and  revenue  which 
had  never  been  voluntarily  resigned.  But 
the  war  had  forced  a  postponement  of  these 
efforts,  and  it  was  not  until  after  1763  that 
they  could  be  resumed.  Governors'  instruc 
tions  were  made  more  mandatory,  colonial 
laws  were  subjected  to  a  sharper  scrutiny, 
officials  in  America  were  selected  with  greater 
care,  and  the  administrative  machinery  was 
tightened  in  many  of  its  parts.  The  old  law 
of  1729  requiring  all  mariners  in  America 
as  well  as  England  to  contribute  sixpence  a 
month  toward  the  maintenance  of  Green 
wich  hospital  was  revived  and  a  special 
collector  sent  to  America  for  its  enforce 
ment.  As  early  as  1750  the  bishop  of  London 
had  urged  the  establishment  of  bishops  in 
America,  and  the  colonists,  particularly  the 
Puritans  of  New  England,  viewed  with  dread 
the  approaching  ascendency  of  the  Episcopal 
organization.  In  1764  proposals  were  sub 
mitted  for  protecting  British  merchants  by 
act  of  parliament  against  the  disordered 
condition  of  colonial  currency,  and  in  the 
same  year  a  single  court  of  vice  admiralty 
was  provided,  to  sit  in  Halifax  and  to  hear 
appeals  from  each  of  the  admiralty  courts 
of  the  colonies.  At  the  same  time  a  searching 


THE  STAMP  ACT  CONGRESS      247 

examination  of  the  fee  system  in  the  colonies 
was  begun  and  continued  for  a  number  of 
years,  with  the  intention  of  regulating  finan 
cial  practices  in  public  offices  in  America, 
During  the  years  1765  and  1766  commanders 
of  the  royal  navy,  acting  as  customs  officers., 
made  many  seizures  for  illicit  trading,  and 
so  efficiently  was  the  new  Sugar  Act  enforced 
that  the  revenue  therefrom,  which  had  been 
less  than  £1000  a  year  under  the  old  Mo 
lasses  Act,  rose  to  £25,000.  The  extension  of 
the  Mutiny  Act  to  America  and  the  new 
provisions"  regarding  the  billeting  and  quar 
tering  of  troops  served  as  an  added  grievance; 
although  efforts  were  made  to  carry  out  the 
measure  with  a  reasonable  respect  for  the 
susceptibilities  of  the  inhabitants. 

At  the  time  of  the  passage  of  the  Stamp 
Act  many  of  these  measures  had  hardly 
taken  effect  in  America,  and  could  have  had 
but  little  influence  in  rousing  the  popular 
discontent.  Yet  others,  particularly  those 
concerning  illegal  trade  and  the  encroach 
ments  of  the  assemblies,  must  have  aroused 
the  fear  of  the  colonists  that  an  attempt  was 
to  be  made  in  a  manner  more  aggressive  and 
systematic  than  ever  before  to  restore  to  the 
crown  the  powers  that  it  legally  possessed 
and  which  had  now  become  the  liberties  of 


248  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

America.  The  retention  of  these  liberties 
was  vital  to  the  life  and  prosperity  of  the 
colonies,  and  they  viewed  the  entrance  of 
parliament  into  the  struggle  with  an  appre 
hension  born  of  uncertainty  as  to  what  it 
might  do  and  how  efficiently  it  might  act. 
The  two  great  acts  of  parliament  became, 
therefore,  the  object  of  colonial  resistance  and 
the  chief  cause  of  popular  protest  and  revolt. 
The  colonial  assemblies  had  already  issued 
addresses  and  memorials  against  the  Sugar 
Act  as  an  evil  device,  harmful  to  the  colonies 
and  threatening  their  prosperity.  Regarding 
the  proposed  Stamp  Act,  information  of 
which  had  been  sent  by  Grenville  to  America 
before  the  introduction  of  the  bill,  they  took 
tigher  ground  and  in  the  debates  of  the  year 
1764  began  a  searching  inquiry  into  the  whole 
question  of  the  constitutional  rights  of  par 
liament,  some  of  the  assemblies  already 
taking  the  position  that  parliament  could 
not  tax  them  at  all  or  even  legislate  for 
them  in  any  capacity.  But  the  restlessness 
of  1764  was  transformed  into  action  in  1765, 
when  the  news  came  to  America  that  the 
measure  had  been  passed  and  that  their 
protests  and  petitions  had  been  dismissed 
without  a  hearing.  For  the  moment  the 
leaders  hesitated,  for  it  seemed  a  dangerous 


THE  STAMP  ACT  CONGRESS      249 

thing  to  defy  the  parliament  of  Great  Britain, 
but  as  one  section  after  another  became 
alive  to  the  seriousness  of  the  situation,  the 
excitement  spread  and  the  spirit  of  resis 
tance  was  aroused.  Virginia,  in  formal  reso 
lutions,  carried  through  with  difficulty  and 
after  long  debate  by  the  fiery  eloquence  of 
Patrick  Henry,  led  the  way,  and  Massachu 
setts  followed,  on  June  8,  by  adopting  a 
motion  to  despatch  a  circular  letter  to  all  the 
colonies,  inviting  them  to  send  delegates  to 
a  congress  to  be  held  at  New  York  the 
following  October. 

But  such  temperate  method  of  discussion 
and  protest  did  not  satisfy  the  more  excitable 
and  uncontrolled  elements  in  America.  In 
flamed  by  pamphleteers  and  popular  orators 
and  stirred  by  a  sense  of  wrong  and  injustice, 
they  organized  for  the  purpose  of  defeating 
the  parliamentary  measures.  To  nullify  the 
act  of  1764  non-importation  agreements 
were  made  and  steps  taken  for  the  encour 
agement  of  domestic  manufactures.  To 
bring  to  naught  the  act  of  1765,  mobs  gath 
ered  in  the  various  cities  and  compelled 
those  who  had  accepted  posts  as  stamp  dis 
tributors  to  resign  their  positions.  Spurred 
by  success,  notably  in  Boston,  they  committed 
deeds  of  violence,  the  inevitable  accompani- 


250          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

ments  of  a  revolution,  and  destroyed  the 
house  of  Thomas  Hutchinson  in  Boston  and 
of  the  loyalist  Moffatt  in  Newport.  In  the 
south,  where  less  violence  was  committed,  the 
s*ame  excitement  reigned  and  demonstra 
tions  were  made  against  both  collectors  and 
stamps.  Everywhere  a  determination  was 
manifest  to  prevent  the  execution  of  the 
act,  either  by  destroying  the  stamps  them 
selves,  which  was  done  in  many  cases,  or 
by  suspending  the  issue  of  newspapers, 
closing  the  courts,  and  discontinuing  such 
forms  of  business  and  trade  as  required  the 
use  of  stamped  paper.  In  the  end  the  Stamp 
Act  proved  an  entire  failure,  and  the  govern 
ment  must  have  lost  considerably  by  the 
unfortunate  venture. 

More  important  for  the  future  of  America 
than  this  display  of  popular  resistance  was 
the  gathering,  on  October  7,  1765,  of  twenty 
seven  delegates  at  New  York,  from  all  the 
colonies  except  New  Hampshire,  Virginia, 
North  Carolina,  and  Georgia,  in  a  conference, 
which  is  sometimes  called  the  first  American 
Congress.  This  body,  composed  in  a  ma 
jority  of  cases  of  men  chosen  by  their  respeor 
tive  assemblies,  stands  as  the  first  independ-\ 
ent  meeting  of  the  colonists  themselves  for 
the  purpose  of  mutual  cooperation  and 


THE  STAMP  ACT  CONGRESS      251 

support.  In  the  face  of  the  threatened^ 
extension  of  British  imperial  authority  the  \ 
colonists  put  aside  for  the  moment  their 
differences  and  in  the  person  of  some  of  their  / 
ablest  leaders  met  in  mutual  confidence  on  / 
common  ground  to  voice  a  common  griev 
ance.  In  the  declaration  of  rights  and 
grievances  and  the  papers  drawn  up  for 
presentation  to  the  king,  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  the  House  of  Commons,  we  find 
the  first  expression  of  American  sentiment 
by  a  body  practically  representative  of  all 
the  colonies.  United  action,  which  had 
seemed  such  a  remote  contingency  only  a 
few  years  before,  had  been  rendered  neces 
sary  in  the  presence  of  what  appeared  to 
be  a  common  danger,  and  it  resulted  in  the 
declaration  of  what  also  appeared  to  be  a 
fundamental  principle  and  the  only  one  upon 
which  all  might  agree.  The  phrase  "natural 
rights  ofEnglishmen"  is  vague  and^^nelS- 
mgless  inTfie ^histor^oJ^constitutionaT  devel 
opment  and~political  philosophy,  and  de- 
serveTto  stand  with  that  other  equally  abused 
phrase,  much  on  the  lips  of  the  colonists  at 
this  time,  "taxation  without  representation.'* 
Neither  haoTany  literal  meaiiing  intact,  But 
as  historical  influences  each  became  a 
phenomenon  of  far-reaching  significance. 


\\ 


252          THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

Men  have  died  for  a  false  creed;  the  colonists 
fought  under  the  banner  of  a  false  philosophy. 
The  importance  of  the  Stamp  Act  congress 
does  not  lie  in  the  declaration  of  principles 
which  it  enunciated.  It  lies  in  the  accom 
plished  fact  that  amid  a  thousand  centri 
fugal  tendencies  that  were  keeping  the 
colonies  apart  as  the  inhabitants  of  thirteen 
separate  communities,  there  had  arisen  a 
conscious  purpose  of  uniting  to  support  a 
\£pmmon  interest.  Premature  as  it  was  and 
almost  a  mockery  in  the  light  of  the  history 
of  the  years  that  followed,  the  remark  at 
the  congress  of  Christopher  Gadsden,  a 
man  whose  impulses  generally  outran  his 
judgment,  was  in  a  sense  a  prophecy.  "There 
ought  to  be  no  New  England  man,  no  New 
Yorker,  known  on  this  continent,  but  all  of 
us  Americans."  The  congress  marks  the 
end  of  an  era,  and  inaugurates  a  period  of 
disturbance,  disorder,  suffering  and  war, 
destined  to  culminate  in  armed  revolt  from 
British  authority,  and  the  eventual  over 
throw  of  the  power  of  king  and  parliament 
in  America. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

ALL  things  considered,  the  best  account  of  the  colonies 
prior  to  1765  will  be  found  in  j£dward  Channing's  History  of 
the  United  States  (vols.  I-Hlpl  906-1912),  which  treats  of 
many  of  the  subjects  touched  upon  in  this  volume.  Supple 
mental  to  it  are  three  volumes  of  The  American  Nation  series 
(IV.  "England  in  America,"  by  Tyler,  V,  "Colonial  Self  Gov 
ernment,"  by  Andre ws,  and  VI,  "  Prpvincial_  Amgrjra,"  by 
Greene,  1903-1905),  which  cover  the  period  from  1607  to 
1750.  Some  of  the  chapters  in  Edward  Eggleston's  Hu 


of  Life  in  the  United  States  Jvols.  I,  II,  all  publishedTl896, 
1 90  If  are  Delightfully  written  and  well  worth  reading.  An 
authoritative  account  of  the  plans  of  union  is  hi  Richard 
Frothingham's  Rise  of  the  Republic  (6th  ed.,  1895),  the  best 
book  on  the  subject. 

There  are  few  histories  of  the  individual  colonies  that  are 
likely  to  interest  the  general  reader.  Such  as  there  are  may  be 
found  noticed  in  the  bibliographies  appended  to  the  volumes 
of  The  American  Nation  series  cited  above,  and  in  A  Bibliog 
raphy  of  History  (1910),  pp.  129-14},  where  comments  and 
criticisms  are  given.  A  few  works  have  appeared  since  these 
bibliographies  were  made  to  which  attention  may  be  called: 
A.  B.  Faust,  The  German  Element  in  the  United  States  (2  vols. 
1909);  C.  K.  Bolton,  Scotch  Irish  Pioneers  (1910);  L.  Mathews. 
The  Expansion  of  New  England  (1909);  R.  H.  Jones,  Tho 
Quakers  in  the  American  Colonies  (2  vols.,  1911);  and  A. 
Johnson,  The  Swedish  Settlements  on  the  Delaware  (2  vols.,  1911). 

Biographies  of  but  few  representative  colonial  leaders  have 
been  written.  Brief  lives  of  Francis  Higginson,  Thomas 
Hooker,  John  Winthrop,  and  Cotton  Mather  of  .New  England, 
Peter  Stuy  vesant  of  New  Amsterdam,  Sir  William  Johnson  of 
New  York,  George  and  Cecilius  Calvert  of  Maryland,  and 
James  Oglethorpe  of  Georgia,  appear  in  the  Makers  of  America 
series.  A  life  of  William  Penn  is  in  the  "True"  Biographies 
series.  Lives  have  also  been  written  of  Conrad  Weiser  of 
Pennsylvania,|by  Walton  (1901),  of  Cadwallader  Golden  of  New 
York,  by  Keyes  (1906),  of  Roger  Williams,  by  Strauss  (1894), 
and  of  Joseph  Dudley  of  Massachusetts,  by  Kimball  (1911). 
Prof.  J.  K.  Hosmer  has  written  lives  of  Sir  Harry  Vane,  the 
younger,  and^Gov-Hutchinson  of  Massachusetts,  and  a  bio 
graphy  of  Gov7*bTiarpe  has  recently  appeared  Trom  the  pen 
of  Lady  Edgar. 

For  religious  history  reference  may  be  made  to  The  American 
Church  History  series  (1893-1897),  nearly  every  volume  of 
which  contains  information  regarding  its  respective  denomina 
tion  in  colonial  times.  The  standard  work  on  the  Anglican 
church  in  the  colonies  is  Anderson's  History  of  the  Church  of 

«53 


254          BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

England  in  the  Colonies  (3  vols.  1856),  but  it  is  sadly  in  want 
of  revision.  On  educational  conditions  see  E.  G.  Dexter's 
History  of  Education  in  the  United  States  (1904),  and  the 
Cyclopedia  of  Education  (3  vols.  published,  1912).  Chapters 
on  social  and  economic  history  may  be  found  in  the  volumes 
of  The  American  Nation  series  cited  above,  while  William 
Weeden's  Economic  and  Social  History  of  New  England  (2 
vols.  1891)  and  Philip  A.  Bruce's  Economic  History  of  Vir 
ginia,  to  1700;  Social  History  of  Virginia,  and  Institutional 
History  of  Virginia  in  the  Seventeenth  Century  (5  vols.  1900- 
1910)  are  valuable  contributions  to  the  subject.  On  manners 
and  customs  the  various  works  of  Alice  Morse  Earle  (Larned, 
Literature  of  American  History,  §§  841,  1044,  and  A  Bibli 
ography  of  History,  p.  104)  are  indispensable,  though  chiefly 
limited  to  New  England  and  New  York,  and  S.  G.  Fisher's 
Men,  Women,. and  Mqnnerj_in  ColojuaL_Tun$3  (2  vols.  1898) 
is  on  tEfT  whole  very  good/ 

There  is  no  single  work  that  treats  comprehensively  the 
commercial  side  of  colonial  history,  but  reference  may  be  made 
to  Weeden  (as  above),  Bruce  (as  above),  Edward  McCrady, 
History  of  South  Carolina  /4  vols.  1897-1902),  and  Bryan  Ed 
wards,  History  of  the  Bruish  Colonies  in  the  West  Indies  (5th 
ed.,  5  vols.  1819). 

On  British  policy  very  little  has  been  written.  The  only 
works  with  any  pretense  to  scholarship  are  H.  E.  Egerton's 
British  Colonial  Policy  (2d  ed.  1909),  G.  L.  Beer's  Origins  of 
^,  British  Colonial  Policy,  1578-1660  (1908)  and  British  Colonial 
Policy,  1754-1765  (1907).  On  British  administration  in 
England  and  America  two  works  of  exceptional  excellence 
have  recently  appeared,  O  TV^.  Dickerson's  American  Colonial 
Government,  1696-1765,  (1 91 2)7  whicITTs  V  history  of  the  Board 
of  Trade  and  its  work,  and  W-JURoot's  The  Relations  of  Penn 
sylvania  with  the  British  Government,  1696-1765  (1912).  A 
few  special  articles  may  be  noted.  M.  P.  Clarke,  "The  Board 
of  Trade  at  Work,"  American  Historical  Review,  October,  1912, 
P>.  \Y_,  Bondj  Jr.,  "Quit  Rent  System  in  the  American  Colonies," 
Ibid.,  April,  T912,  and  various  essays  on  colonial  law  and  pro 
cedure  in  the  Select  Essays  on  Anglo-American  Legal  History, 
(vols.  I,  II,  1907-1908).  While  there  are  many  single  papers 
on  the  land  system  in  the  colonies  no  comprehensive  work  on 
the  subject  has  yet  been  written. 

Attention  may  be  called  to  three  very  useful  collections  of 

^— -f-'original  documents.     A.  B.  Hart's  American  History  told  by 

Contemporaries  (4  vols.   1901),  William  MacDonald's  Select 

-""'Charters   illustrative   of  American   History  (1899),  and  J.  F. 

Jameson's    Original    Narratives   of   Early    American    History 

~~"(1S  vols.  1906-1912). 


INDEX 


Admiralty,  132-3 

Agriculture,  90,  91 

Albany,  223,  225-7 

Allegiance,  160,  199-204 

American  sentiment,  162-3,  251-2 

Aristocracy,  81-3 

Assembly,  158,  173-5,  246,  248 

Authority,  141-54,  182 

Bahamas,  51-5 

Baltimore,  Lord,  30,  40-1,  75-9 
Bsirbadoes,  17,  34-5,  41,  46,  171 
Bermuda,  17,  22,  28,  29,  35,  41,  171 
Board  of  Trade,   135-8,   141,   147, 

171,  172,  176,  179,  221 
Boston,  26,  218,  219,  249-50 
Boundaries,  207-9 

Calvert.    See  Baltimore,  Lord 
Canada,  15,  32,  238,  239 
Carlisle,  Earl  of,  34-6 
Carolinas,  16,  51-5,  182,  183,  232 
Carteret,  Sir  George,  46-8 
Charleston,  52,  96,  101 
Church,  83,  87-9,  219,  246 
Civil  b'st,  171-2 
Clergy,  83,  87-9 
Coasting  trade,  93-4,  212 
Colonists,  character,  59-61 
Commerce.     See  Trade 
Common  law,    182-5 
Communication,  152-3,  205-12 
Companies,  incorporated,  20—30 
Complaints  and  grievances,  178-81 
Congresses,  219-220,  223-7,  249-52 
Connecticut,  15,  27-9,  38, 41 
Constitution,  244 
Control  of  the  Colonies,  141-54 
Cooper.     See  Shaftesbury 
Courts,  178-81 
Customs  duties,  189-96,  207,  242 

Defense,  146,  159,  219,  223-7,  245 

Delaware,  16 

Democracy,  60,  63-8,  81-3,  100 

Departments,  121,  128-35 

Disallowance,  176-8 

Dutch,  15,  16,  17,  114,  125 


Education,  89,  104 

England's    Constitutional    changes, 

121,  128-30 
England's  policy,  107-27,  138-40 

Feudalism,  76,  79,  105,  164-6 
Finance,  131-2, 150-2, 159, 170,  201, 

239 

Fisheries,  94 
Florida,  16,  44 
Franchise,  158 
Franklin,  B.,  215 
French,  9-16,  18,  32,  35,  198-9,  224, 

230,  237 
French  and  Indian  War,  230-6 

Georgia,  16,  170,  232 
Gorges,  Sir  F.,  30,  36-40 
Governors,  167-74,  181 
Grenville,  242,  844-5,  248 
Growth,  161-3,  192 

Henry,  Patrick,  236,  249 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  IS 
Huguenots,  32-3 

Immigration,  98—9 

Independence,   155,   161,   164,   181, 

203-4,  238,  243 

Indians,  197,  221,  223,  225,  226,  240 
Individualism,  229,  233 
Insurrections,  157,  161 
Irish,  100-2 

Jamaica,  17,  44,  171,  241 
Jamestown,  21,  22,  70,  74 

Land-holding,  64-5,  71-3,  165-7 

Laws,  144,  175-85 

Legal  delays,  180-81 

Lennox,  Earl  of,  30-1 

Liberties,  247-8 

Locke,  John,  51,  52 

London  Company,  21-3 

Long  Island,  32 

Loyalty,  202,  233 

Lumber,  196-7 


255 


256 


INDEX 


Mails,  212-14 
Maine,  15,  3* 
MaltraverS,  Lord,  30-3 
Manufactures,  96-7,  119,  120,  123 
Maryland,   16,  35,  41,  55-6,  75-9, 

231 
Massachusetts,  If,  25^9,  36-40,  41, 

65-7,  81-3,  86,  118.  125,  160,  216, 

230,  249 

"  Mayflower,"  ship,  24 
Migration,  209-10 
Military  affairs,  230-5,  247 
Molasses,  189,  194,  236,  242,  247 

Naval  stores,  195-fl 

Navigation  Acts,  115-19,  188 

New  England,  15,  24-9,  31,  36-40; 
lands  and  towns,  63-8;  lumber 
trade,  196-7;  union,  216;  Do 
minion,  217-19 

Newfoundland,  14,  40 

New  Hampshire,  15,  27 

New  Jersey,  16,  47-51 

Newport,  93,  94,  96 

News,  213 

New  York,  15,  45,  50-51,  173,  183, 
230 

North  and  South,  105-6,  208-9 

Nova  Scotia.  15,  32 

Officials,  145,  149-150 
Otis,  James,  236 

Parliament,  129,    148-9,    163,   172, 

186,  241,  248 
Paymaster,  132 
Penn,  56-9,  77,  80 
Pennsylvania,  16,  20,  55-9,  75-80, 

183,  230-1 

Philadelphia,  57,  58,  80 
Pilgrims,  24-5,  37 
Pirates,  18-19,  54 
Plantations  and  Colonies,  108-12 
Planters,  95,  99,  101 
Plymouth,  15,  21,  22,  24-5,  37,  41, 

82 

Policy  of  England,  107-27,  138-40 
Popular  rule,  157-9,  168 
Privateers,  18-19 
Privy  Council,  122-5,' 128-30 
Proprietors,  30-41,  47,  55 
Puritan*,  26-8,  36-40,  84-8 


Quakers,  43,  48-50,  56 
Quit-rents,  165-7 

Religious  beginnings,  12,  23-8,  43. 

84,  87-9 

Representation,  73-5 
Resistance,  200,  203,  248,  249,  250 
Revenue,  242-3,  *45 
Rhode  Island,  15,  27,  28,  29,  41 
Rice,  187 

Roman  Catholics,  40-1 
Royal  provinces,  126-7,  142-4,  234- 

St.  Christopher,  34 

Salem,  26 

Saybrook,  15,  38,  64 

Scots-Irish,  100-2 

Self-government,  235,  243 

Separation,  155,  161,  185 

Shaftesbury,  Earl  of,  47,  51-8 

Simplicity,  81-3 

Smith,  John,  22 

Smuggling,  191-4 

Social  conditions,  97-106,  158 

Southern  Society,  103-4 

Spanish,  16,  17,  18,  38,  237 

Stamp  tax,  244-52 

Statute  laws,  182,  184 

Stirling,  Earl  of,  30-2 

Sugar,  193-4,  198,  242,  247,  «48 

Taxation,  «42-52 

Tobacco,  23,  71,  86,  90,  9l,  85,  W, 

113-5,  187 
Tolerance,  27-  8 
Town,  63-5,  78-80 
Trade,  43-7,    92-4,    109-19,    188-9; 

illegal,  191-4,  198-200,  247 
Trading  companies,  20-3 
Travel,  209-13 

Union,  205,  209,  214-28,  229,  251-8 

Virginia,  16,   21-3,    28-33,  41,  68- 
75,  231-2,  249 

War  office,  133-5 

Warwick,  Earl  of,  37-8 

West  Indies,  17-19, 34-6, 192-8, 108» 

288 

Williams,  Roger,  28,  85 
Writs  oi  Assistance,  2Sfi 


r>AY  USE 


8  1994 
CIRCULATION  DE 


YB  20445 


/ 


